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Kemmelberg

First Farmers Part 2: Extent of the Neolithic Site

by J L Putman & M Soenen

The first modest prospecting at the Kemmelberg site dates from the end of the nineteenth century. This continued until the First World War interrupted (1914-1918), leading to the identification of a Neolithic settlement.

Baron Maurice de Maere d'Aertrycke (1864-1941) was one of the first to prospect on the Kemmelberg.

Fig 11: Baron Maurice de Maere d'Aertrycke
Photo public domain

Fig 11: Baron Maurice de Maere d'Aertrycke.

The war's general and thorough soil destruction in 1918 thwarted intentions to carry out more extensive archaeological digging. It was not until the 1960s that small-scale excavations restored the connection and a previously-unknown aspect of the site - the Iron Age - surprisingly came to light.

Fig 12: Small-scale test excavations, 1967
Photo © Jean Luc Putman

Fig 12: Small-scale test excavations, 1967 campaign.

Large-scale excavations which were focused on the Iron Age took place between 1968 and 1980. These were immediately able to change the picture of the plateau's Neolithic occupation. They illustrated just how much the Iron Age earthworks and site disturbances in historical periods on the Kemmelberg had hindered the study of the Neolithic phase.

Nevertheless, many Neolithic traces and finds were found in situ at one location. In between, systematic prospecting continued from the early 1960s until 2012.

Through diversified fieldwork the characteristics of the Neolithic site were in this way gradually revealed.

Fig 13: Large-scale excavations 1972
Photo © A Van Doorselaer, RAMS

Fig 13: Large-scale excavations 1972, Neolithic zone in situ.

The overall picture of the Neolithic site on the Kemmelberg is divided into two parts: the flanks and an elliptical plateau zone, which covers an area of three hectares.

A large part of this top zone is located above the 150m altitude line.

The well-connected find zones in this area have yielded numerous flint artefacts on the surface, but scarce fragments of earthenware due to the difficult preservation conditions.

Fig 14: Top zone and Neolithic zone
Photo © A Van Doorselaer, RAMS

Fig 14: Top zone (above the 150m altitude line), and the Neolithic zone in situ (bottom left). Additional image editing by W Willems.

During the excavations, numerous trenches were opened on the top of the Kemmelberg.

Apart from Iron Age material, these all contained a good deal of material from the Neolithic period.

All of this points to a fairly intense Neolithic occupation of the summit zone.

Within this, on the south-western edge of the plateau, a hitherto limited area of in situ Neolithic remains has been preserved, quite by chance at a shallow depth.

Outside of the forested peak, the density of finds from prospecting is also variable.

The site occupation and exploitation of a landscape with mixed deciduous forest on loamy and sandy loam soils by Middle Neolithic farmers seem to have descended to a variable bottom line on the hill slopes, with the lowest level at fifty metres and up to a local distance of over a thousand metres from the summit at 154m. Right away, the two well levels at 130-140m and 80m were within reach.

Fig 15: Well levels, Kemmelberg
Photo © NGI, edited GDI Vlaanderen

Fig 15: Kemmelberg well levels
Overlaid light blue lines = highest well level
Overlaid dark blue lines = lowest well level.

The picture on the Kemmelberg of the Neolithic presence of humans in the Late Neolithic and Final Neolithic periods (3500-2000 BC) is distorted. Definitely recognisable artefacts from these periods are rare and are limited to a few arrowheads.

Possibly-present earthenware and flint-working elements remain largely unrecognisable in the mass of Middle Neolithic material.

In the bed of the Heidebeek at Haringe - twenty kilometres from the Kemmelberg itself and on the border between Belgium and France - Remi Delerue found a rim sherd of a beaker belonging to a Late Neolithic Bell Beaker culture or the early Bronze Age.


Continued in Part 3

 

 

Text copyright © Archeo Kemmelberg. An original feature for the History Files: Kemmelberg.