simple loaded during startup

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Doing 
strace -o emacs.strace emacs -Q --no-site-file -nw
and then
grep simple emacs.strace

shows that "simple" is being loaded during startup. This seems strange
given that "simple" should be in the dumped image... 
If one deletes all traces of simple.el simple.elc simple.el.gz etc
then emacs gives a "Wrong type argument: nil" error when starting up. 

Does anyone know if loading "simple" at startup is intentional?

Thanks