Legacy of Dr. Reinhard Van Gelder Lives on
This is a new one for the books. An eminent archaeologist is being co-credited for a massive new discovery more than 2 years after his death. Reinhard Van Gelder left a considerable sum of money to the University of the Rhine to be used to establish an institute that specializes in Rhine valley archaeology.
A graduate of the University of the Rhine, Dr. Van Gelder for years held the position of Senior Archaeologist, Northern Europe, with the Royal Museum of Antiquities in Amsterdam. Van Gelder first rose to prominence when he excavated the twin fortresses of Illyrium and Italy in the 1980s. His work was considered to be groundbreaking in a prehistoric period that few had until his time attempted to study.
Van Gelder focused European scientific opinion on the Swiss Alps in 2001 when he excavated the remains of a large creature dubbed the Snow Angel. In 2005 he assisted Dr Stig Kllénin exploring an ancient undersea city in the North Sea. But it was Van Gelder’s announcement in 2007 that another pair of fortresses facing each other across the Rhine valley engaged in a long war that ended thousands of years before modern humans are known to have dwelt in the region.
Scientists dismissed Van Gelder’s work as a joke and he was subsequently unable to find new funding for his work. However, Van Gelder’s family had left him very well off and in late 2007 he converted his fortune into a trust fund that was to be used to underwrite research in the Golden Wood near the Rhine river, a small woody bend of land near the white fortress. Unfortunately, Van Gelder fell ill over the Christmas holidays and in early 2008 he passed away after a bout with pneumonia.
The University of the Rhine accepted a bequest from Van Gelder’s will to establish the Reinhard Van Gelder Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology, which is now headed by Van Gelder’s longtime student and friend, Dr. Ernst Voorst. Voorst made headlines this week when he announced that further work in the Golden Wood had led to the discovery and excavation of a grave site for a female human from about 10,000 years ago. Dubbed the Princess of the Golden Wood, her burial led researchers to uncover wooden artifacts that are believed to have been used to construct homes in the treetops.
The City in the Trees may be the missing link that Van Gelder was looking for. It could explain much about what the inhabitants of the region were like and how they lived. But so far the only remains discovered are those of the princess (who may in fact have been a princess at all). Her lonely grave is a puzzling mystery that is sure to keep people asking questions for years to come.
