Frisian

Frisian, people of western Europe whose name survives in that of the mainland province of Friesland and in that of the Frisian Islands off the coast of the Netherlands but who once occupied a much more extensive area.

In prehistoric times the Frisians inhabited the coastal regions from the mouth of the Rhine at Katwijk (north of The Hague) to the mouth of the Ems. Much of the land then was covered by lakes, estuaries, and swamps and exposed to the incursions of the sea, and the inhabitants lived mostly on terpen, or man-made mounds. Slowly the Frisians brought the lower-lying land under cultivation and protected themselves against the sea by building more terpen (dikes were not practicable). Most of these were in the modern provinces of Friesland and Groningen; the east bank of the Rhine itself was almost uninhabited. Excavations in the terpen have thrown some light on Frisian life in the centuries before the Romans came.