Pastime #1 — Anloo: Prehistory - Hunters, Farmers & the Hondsrug Landscape

Saturday, February 28th, 2026 – 14:00
Meeting point: Bus stop Bosweg, Anloo

With Pastime, a new series built around a play on words — past time and pastime — we begin a journey through the history of the Netherlands, month by month, place by place, in chronological order.

Our first chapter takes us all the way back to the Prehistoric era, to the quiet village of Anloo (450 inhabitants), located on the Hondsrug ridge in the heart of the Drentsche Aa National Park. Here, landscape and history merge in a way that is rare in the Netherlands.

### What we will discover

This walk will take us from the edge of Anloo into the beautiful Drenthe countryside, where traces of the earliest inhabitants of this land are still visible:

• prehistoric burial mounds
• hunebedden (dolmens)
• ancient pathways and traces embedded in the heathland

We will explore how the region evolved from a land crossed by nomadic hunter-gatherers to a settled agricultural society — a transformation that laid the foundations of the Netherlands as we know it today.

Through stories, observations and the landscape itself, we will reflect on how people once lived, moved, worked the land, and related to nature — and how those choices still resonate in the present.

### Practical details

• Walk length: approx. 5.2 km
• The route is mainly through nature, so comfortable shoes are recommended.

### After the walk

As always, we will end the afternoon with our usual moment together over a drink.

At the moment, I am still finalising the location — as Anloo is very small and has no options — but I will confirm this in the coming days (likely in Assen, the nearest town).

***

A journey back in time.
A landscape that remembers.
A walk where history emerges from the earth beneath our feet.