The exploitation of mammals during the Mesolithic in Northern Belgium: the case of the Early Mesolithic occupations of Kerkhove (Scheldt Valley) ; L'exploitation des mammifères au cours du Mésolithique dans le nord de la Belgique : le cas des occupations du Mésolithique ancien de Kerkhove (vallée de l'Escaut)

International audience ; The Kerkhove site, locatedin the Scheldt Valley, is the only Mesolithic site in the region that has yielded faunal remains. This situation is partly justified by the poor preservation of the organic remains. Indeed, the sandy substratum of the region and the often-late sedimentation of the archaeological occupation levels make the preservation of bones and other organic elements extremely rare. This singularity makes it possible to enrich the data on the period in the region, which is already well-documented thanks to previously published lithic and environmental studi... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Pironneau, Camille
Aluwé, Kim
Crombé, Philippe
Vandendriessche, Hans
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Verlag/Hrsg.: HAL CCSD
Schlagwörter: Mesolithic / zooarchaeology / Belgium / subsistence strategies / seasonality / Mésolithique / archéozoologie / Belgique / stratégies de subsistance / saisonnalité / [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences / [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory
Sprache: Französisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26936742
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://hal.science/hal-04388937

International audience ; The Kerkhove site, locatedin the Scheldt Valley, is the only Mesolithic site in the region that has yielded faunal remains. This situation is partly justified by the poor preservation of the organic remains. Indeed, the sandy substratum of the region and the often-late sedimentation of the archaeological occupation levels make the preservation of bones and other organic elements extremely rare. This singularity makes it possible to enrich the data on the period in the region, which is already well-documented thanks to previously published lithic and environmental studies. The site contains occupations dating from the Early Mesolithic to the Late Mesolithic. All the remains were studied, but the analysis focused mainly on the ancient occupation, which was richer in bone artifacts.Located in the middle valley of the Scheldt, in the heart of the Flemish Ardennes, Kerkhove was the subject of preventive operations between 2015 and 2016. They focused on two sectors, the first (WP1) extending between the roof and the southern slope of the levee, and the second (WP2) being restricted to the roof of the levee. In addition to the remains scattered over the entire area of investigation, the excavations in these sectors uncovered 17 Mesolithic loci. Of these, 15 are located in the first sector, and two are in sector 2. The site's most intensive occupation occurred in the Early Mesolithic period. Based on 14C dating and technological characteristics, a minimum of nine loci can be attributed to this period. The occupations would have started between 10,716 and 10,425 cal BP and ended between 9,876 and 9,469 cal BP.All occupations taken together, a total of 1020 pieces for the first sector and 98 pieces for the second were examined. However, in the context of this study, only the material associated with the Early Mesolithic occupations was studied exhaustively, since it contains the greatest number of remains. The taphonomic study revealed significant alteration of the remains, essentially due to ...