Stuff: Catalogue of Archaeological Finds from Amsterdam's North/South Metro Line

The construction of the metro line under the city of Amsterdam between 2003 and 2012 provided an excellent opportunity to investigate the past by organizing archaeological excavations. The department Monuments & Archaeology of the city of Amsterdam have been working on this since the start of construction in 2003. The main archaeological sites were situated on the Damrak and the Rokin. These excavations were very deep, as far as 25 m below ground, at which depth the layers of soil dated from the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago.

On top of these old layers the archaeologists found the riverbed of the Amstel which still runs through the city. The riverbed extended to a depth of 12 meter and was full of archaeological finds. In the old days people often dumped their refuse in the water. Also objects fell in the river by accident and sunk into the muddy river bed. The archaeological excavations produced almost 700,000 finds.

Stuff gathers the archaeological finds from the riverbed into a material history of the city.