Between 1959 and 1964 a Late Neolithic settlement was excavated at Vlaardingen (Van Regteren Altena et al. 1962/63). The culture was named after its findspot 'the Vlaardingen Culture'. It is dated around 2300 BC. Since, like the settlement at Aartswoud (see below), it is situated near the coast, it must be reckoned as secondary costal-neolithic. The settlement lay in a freshwater tidal area on the bank of a wooded creak. Apart from many other finds large quantities of flint were discovered. Not the amount of flint but the number of large unused pieces of flint is important for this account. If you look at the area excavated the number of pieces of flint found is not so great. For example, if we loo.k at cutting 16, 2 to 3 pieces of flint were found per square metre (98 artefacts and 402 flakes in an area of 219 square metres), and in cutting 11,3 to 4 pieces of flint per square metre (76 artefacts and 569 flakes in an area of 152 square metres.) In contrast to the settlement at Aartswoud that in Vlaardingen was excavated using only the spade. The large pieces of flint in Vlaardingen can be divided into broken artefacts (of polished axes), core pieces and cortex pieces. The large number of pieces with cortex refutes an earlier theory that only completed or nearly completed tools were traded (Clark 1965, p. 244), This theory presumably arose because many flint finds were either single finds or grave finds. It was the custom to lay tools in the grave with the deceased so that he could use them in the herafter. It appeared from investigation of settlements that much unprocessed flint was also traded. In the settlement tools were made from this raw material. This can be seen for example in the cortex-scrapers. This unprocessed flint could have been obtained through trade, but could also have been collected. Thus settlements can be divided according to their topographic situation into two groups: 1) settlements where flint was found in the catchment area and 2) settlements which had to get flint from ouside their catchment area.