Tjerk Vermaning (1929,

Staphorst Staphorst () is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. History The villages of Staphorst and its southern neighbour Rouveen came into existence as in the 13th century monks started to bring the bogs and swamps into culture. All ...

Overijssel Overijssel (; ; ; ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands located in the eastern part of the country. The province's name comes from the perspective of the Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht, Episcopal principality of Utrecht ...

– 1986,

Assen Assen () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands, and is the capital (politics), capital of the province of Drenthe. It received City rights in ...

) was a Dutch amateur archaeologist who is now mostly remembered for the court case and media frenzy that followed the assessment of professional archaeologists that he had forged certain of his prehistoric archaeological 'finds'. Before the forgery came out Tjerk Vermaning was a well-respected collector who in 1966 received the Cultural Prize of

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Jan ...

for his contributions to furthering the understanding of the prehistoric heritage of the province. On 18 March 1975, however, he was arrested on a forgery charge. The accusations were made by the province of

, based on the findings of archeologists professor

Tjalling Waterbolk Harm Tjalling "Tjalling" Waterbolk (18 May 1924 – 27 September 2020) was a Dutch archaeologist. He was a professor of archaeology and director of the Biological-Archaeological Institute at the University of Groningen between 1954 and 1987. Wate ...

and his associate Dick Stapert of the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; , abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen, Netherlands. Founded in 1614, th ...

. An arduous court case followed, in which several well-known Dutch and European professional archaeologists (including German archaeologist ) supported the accusations. Several amateur archaeologists, on the other hand, were convinced of Vermaning's innocence and mounted their own campaign to get him acquitted. Vermaning was initially found guilty of fraud and was sentenced to one month in prison in 1977, but he appealed the verdict. In 1978 Vermaning was acquitted on appeal because it had not been proven, in the eyes of the judge, that he had himself forged the artefacts in question. Despite Vermaning's acquittal, consensus among professional archaeologists was and is that the artefacts are not authentic. Vermaning felt that as a result of the court case his integrity had been shattered, and he remained bitter about the affair and resentful toward academic archaeology for the rest of his life. For years or even decades the Vermaning affair strained the relations between Dutch amateur and professional archaeologists, especially in the northern region where Vermaning had been active.

Publications

* , 2018. ''De zaak Vermaning. Over een markant amateurarcheoloog in Drenthe''. Assen, Drents Museum, 2018. * , 1982. ''A middle Palaeolithic artefact scatter, and a few younger finds from near Mander NW of Ootmarsum (Province of Overijssel, the Netherlands)''. Palaeohistoria, 24: 29–31. * J.D. van der Waals & H.T. Waterbolk: 'The middle palaeolithic finds from Hogersmilde'. In: ''Palaeohistoria''. XV, 1973, p. 35-120 *The history about tjerk vermaning 202

1929 births 1987 deaths Amateur archaeologists People from Staphorst Archaeological forgery 20th-century Dutch archaeologists {{Archaeologist-stub