This palaeoecological research forms part of an eight months project funded by the Flemish Land Agency. The project aims to reconstruct vegetation and land-use changes during the Holocene through multi-proxy analyses (palaeoecology, geomorphology, archaeology and historical geography) of soil archives from Hechtel-Eksel and Lommel (Limburg, Belgium). Here we present the palaeoecological results of a peat profile from the Grote Nete valley in Hechtel-Eksel. The analyses of micro- and macrofossils (pollen and other organic walled microfossils, seeds and fruits, mosses, wood) reveal interesting details on the Preboreal climatic oscillation and Early/Middle Holocene vegetation development and succession. Also evidence of animal trampling zones along the palaeo riverbank is attested. Furthermore, dwarf birch (Betula nano) is surprisingly spotted in the Boreal/Atlantic from which we can certainly conclude that (a)biotic conditions have locally advantaged the survival of this Late Glacial relict shrub during the Early/Middle Holocene.