La vallée de l'Escaut à Pont-à-Chin

The sudden opening of a karst pipe in the abandoned bed of the Scheldt River has exposed 8 m ofHolocene deposits; their stratigraphy, archaeological contents, fossil fauna and flora are studied here. A well dated early occupation is from the First Iron Age to Early La Tène (around 650-450 B.C.), a second one from Roman times (around 50-200 A.D.); they permit a close control of the 14 C dates, which are systematically too old, due to reworking in the stream. Vertebrate and molluscan assemblages are discussed separately