8.2 Migration period
The excavations at Dongjum, Hallum and Englum (table 7, fig. 35) were medium-sized; water-sieving was only done at Englum. The introduction of combs and bone skates during this period will partly explain the higher proportions of worked bones in the Migration and later periods (table 7). An antler comb side plate, a bone skate and a spindle whorl found at Dongjum date to the Migration period (GIA unpublished).
Two antler combs and a cattle costa fragment found together with a piece of wood of the same shape were found in the Migration period phase at Hallum. The combs are a triangular one-sided comb and a two-sided comb (Buitenhuis 2009). Other one-sided triangular combs came to light in an inhumation burial in the Oosterbeintum terp (Knol et al. 1996, 374-375; Kramer & Prummel 2000, fig. 1). The comb was dated to AD 475-525, i.e. during the Migration period (see table 7, where the comb is listed with the grave goods from the Migration and Merovingian periods). One specimen of the same type was found in Englum, but dated to the Merovingian period (see below).
Dating to the Migration period phase at Englum are two unfinished skates, one made from a cattle radius, the other from a horse metacarpus, and a sawn cattle costa similar to the ones found at Wijnaldum-Tjitsma (Prummel 2008). The use of bone and antler tools was perhaps less extensive in the other terpen than at Wijnaldum-Tjitsma, where however there is a broader assemblage which also include personal items. The large number of tools at Wijnaldum-Tjitsma, however, is also the result of water-sieving (table 7).