Managing a farm in Europe these days is no easy task, what with mad cow disease and severe flooding. Farmers in central Holland, though, face a rather more unusual hazard.
Ancient ships keep popping up in the middle of their crops.
Roelof Wester, who owns a farm in Emmeloord, not far from Amsterdam, was ploughing his onion fields last year when his tractor struck something hard. But when I started digging I found that it covered a big area, and I began to see planks. To my surprise, I realised I had found a complete ship. The 16th-century boat was one of 435 shipwrecks to be discovered on land in recent years. The plough has become an unlikely archaeological tool.