Kemmelberg

In situ traces and finds

Available in situ traces and finds are limited to a rather complex Neolithic layer stratigraphy which is of a local thickness of one metre, along with a palisade track of some thirty metres in length.

Fig 16: Composite south-north profile with the standing trench in the middle (original 1973 image edited by W Willems).

The composite south-north profile above contains elements of the Neolithic occupation traces:

• The various elements rest on a sandy subsoil (2) with disturbed top soil (1)
• On that subsoil lies (sometimes) an old living surface (6) with artefacts and organic remains, including hazelnut remains
• On top of this layer lies a levelling earthen deposit (7) with artefacts and branches, burnt or not, and twigs
• This is followed by habitation layers (3) with all kinds of organic remains, sometimes with burn marks (5) resting on yellow loamy sand (4b)
• In the middle of this habitation layer is a standing trench which may have contained a row of posts (palisade)
• (4a) and (4b) form a levelling layer which connects the trench with displaced sand from layer (2)
• In layers (2) and (3), iron sandstone fragments are present in places
• In the northern course of the section, a similar scenario repeats itself: cover with an equalising layer, itself intersected with a horizontal fill, in which traces of fire were also present

Only in the uppermost levels of this layer can be found shards from the Iron Age and a concentration of stone, presumably from the Iron Age rampart construction which had been erected above it.

The whole thing points to a succession of occupation phases, each separated by a levelling layer. The standing trench for the row of posts may have had a defensive character, although this is only one of the possible interpretations based on findings at other sites.

The photo below shows the ground level with burn marks and branches. Hazelnut fragments were also found amongst the burnt branches and twigs of birch or alder.

Fig 17: Ground level with a sandstone grinding stone in the foreground.

Due to the soil's acidity levels, pollen grains have not been preserved and bone fragments are very scarce. Where found, these belong to goat, sheep, pig, cattle (a tooth was found), and one bird. Within the vicinity of the grinding stone were also found some grain, of two wheat types.

The material findings consist mainly of numerous flint artefacts and potsherds.

Until now, the excavation area for materials in situ remained very small in relation to the presumed size of this Neolithic highland settlement. Unfortunate site conditions - with deeply disturbed soils which have been inherited from the past - are an obstacle to uncovering larger areas which could provide an insight into the aspects of the settlement structures.

From the position and proportions of the standing trench and some traces of postholes and stains (from a hearth?) no useful conclusions can be drawn. Therefore the understanding of the settlement's organisation is very fragmentary when compared to other sites of a similar size from the Middle Neolithic.

According to the in situ data, the occupation can be reduced to two - possibly three - phases. Although the initial permanent occupation and settlement of the Kemmelberg can be dated to about 4000 BC, the total occupation period remains unknown.

See also: Lithic Finds in situ.

Earthenware elements

The pottery shows many similarities with finds from Spiere on the Scheldt, forty kilometres as the crow flies to the east of the Kemmelberg.

Fig 18: Pottery from Spiere, typical of the Spiere Group.

These include large storage jars or 'tulip'-shaped jars with open necks, often with rounded bottoms. Typical are handles or suspension systems (ears), whether or not perforated horizontally or vertically.

The use of heated and crushed flint as the main skimming for the clay paste is characteristic of earthenware production within the Spiere Group.

Clearly recognisable Late Neolithic or Final Neolithic earthenware has not been found on the Kemmelberg so far.

At Haringe - at about twenty kilometres to the north-west of the Kemmelberg - a sherd from the Final Neolithic or the Early Bronze Age was recovered during prospecting.

Fig 19: Outer wall of potsherd with five horizontal rows of impressions, Haringe in Belgium.

See also: Earthenware in situ.

Lithic material from prospecting by fieldwalking

Amongst the hundreds of Neolithic artefacts which form part of prospecting finds, some large groups of tools can be distinguished, such as the many scrapers, knives, and blades, and the less numerous tranchet axes and scarce drills, arrowheads, polished axes, etc.

Fig 20: Black silex flakes, Kemmelberg peak.

Tools such as polished axes are characteristic of early farmers. Prospecting on the Kemmelberg has mainly yielded a relatively small number of fragments of polished flint axes, often having been reworked into a new tool.

Halfway through the last century a beautiful polished axe was found by Gerard Duflou during digging work on a hill road.

Aside from polished axes, tranchet axes are often typical tools of the culture group which lived on the Kemmelberg.

Their use as a hoe or drawbar has been demonstrated here and there. The locally-produced tranchet axes are characteristic of sites from the southern part of the Scheldt basin, serving to distinguish those sites from others in the Rhineland, where few or no tranchet axes have been found.

Arrowheads form a small group of artefacts, with them often having been seen to be leaf-shaped or triangular. Hunting had become a marginal phenomenon. Arrowheads from a number of sites can be found which did serve as a (deadly) weapon such as, for example, in human eye sockets or vertebrae.

A number of arrows were probably fitted with a transverse arrowhead, a flint artefact with transverse cut and sides with a steep retouch.

A few arrowheads, winged and hafted onto a shaft, date from the Final Neolithic, and are therefore certainly of a younger date than the other arrowheads.

Of the prospecting finds, two blades were mesoscopically and macroscopically studied in detail. Both blades show many similarities in terms of raw materials, and in probable working techniques, models, retouches, and traces of use. The two grey blades appear to come from the flint mine site at Spiennes (Hainaut in Belgium), at about ninety kilometres as the crow flies from the Kemmelberg.

Other blades were used as a knife or sickle to cut grass or grain.

See also: Prospection Fieldwalking Finds.

Flint raw materials

A summary observation of a sample of flint prospection finds shows that the Kemmelberg farmers had a wide variety of flint raw materials at their disposal.

These came from the chalk areas of the Mons Basin (Spiennes) and the Paris Basin, among other locations. Quite a lot of flint can also be found south of the Kemmelberg, a few tens of kilometres away (in the Lille region and on the Artois plateau).

Local flint boulders were also used. These were usually of inferior quality and were recognisable by the ochre colour of the cortex and flint core. They occur loose or fixed in the Diestian sands and iron sandstone on the hilltop. They were used in all periods of the Stone Age on the Kemmelberg, and possibly also during the subsequent 'metal' ages.

Fig 21: Core pieces of local flint boulders, Kemmelberg.

Based on the little-worn appearance of the cortex, it appears that some flints originate from mining. Axes, sickles, and blades amongst other finds on the Kemmelberg may have come from the Spiennes flint mines.

These Neolithic mines form a vast flint mining and cutting centre of around a hundred hectares in surface area, a location which was exploited for two millennia.

Since the year 2000 the flint mines of Spiennes have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Within the site is an interpretation centre by the name of 'SILEX'S', and an ongoing archaeological research programme. SILEX'S is located in the 'Petit-Spiennes' mining area, which totals fourteen hectares and which contains hundreds of identified mine shafts which are up to sixteen metres deep.

Fig 22: SILEX'S Spiennes building in Belgium.

Fig 23: Chalk-cut gallery with mine corridors and dark flint banks, Spiennes.

The Spiennes miners manufactured various types of tools for the local farmers. In addition, they specialised in the production of semi-finished products such as axes and blades. Their exports to the Kemmelberg (ninety kilometres away), and even further away up to distances of 160 kilometres, testifies to the increasing need for specialised tools in the growing Neolithic farming communities.

Fig 24: Unpolished axe, an example of a semi-finished product, from Spiennes.

Conclusion

Around the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, for the first time the Kemmelberg was inhabited by a farming community.

From in situ observations various phases of occupation can be distinguished. Carbon-14 dating indicates a spread over several centuries, perhaps up to around 3800 BC.

The functions of the Middle Neolithic presence are not well known at present. Perhaps the top of the mound was equipped with palisades?

What is clearer is the presence - in great variety - of extra-regional raw materials from relatively distant regions. Remote flint mining centres in chalk regions also played a role in this.

From this bilan, the picture emerges of the Kemmelberg as a site of weight, firmly embedded in the exchange network of important sites within the wider area during the Middle Neolithic. In contrast to that period, knowledge of the Late Neolithic and Final Neolithic on and around the Kemmelberg remains very poor.

 

REFERENCES:
Baudewijn B - Studie van het lithisch materiaal van de neolithische site op de Kemmelberg (Ongepubliceerde licentiaatsverhandeling KU Leuven (unpublished), 1982, in Dutch)

Beau A et al - Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg Farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice (PLOS One, 5 July, 2017)

Bostyn F, Monchablon C, Praud I, & Vanmontfort B - Le Néolithique moyen II dans le sud-ouest du Bassin de l'Escaut: nouveaux éléments dans le groupe de Spiere (Revue archéologique de Picardie, Le Néolithique du Nord de la France dans son contexte européen, n° spécial 28, 55-76, 2011, in French)

Chure G et al - The Anthropocene by the numbers: a quantitative snapshot of humanity's influence on the Planet (2021)

Collin J-P, Collet H, Denis S, & Putman J L - Notes sur deux grandes lames en silex trouvées au Kemmelberg (Notae Praehistoricae, 39, 133-141, 2019, in French)

Meyer C, Knipper C, Nicklisch N, et al - Early Neolithic executions indicated by clustered cranial trauma in the mass grave of Halberstadt (Nat Commun 9, 2472, 2018 - see external links)

Putman R, Soenen M, & Tieghem G - De prehistorie (Roumegoux Y & J Termote (Red), Kemmel-Cassel. De vroegste bewoningsgeschiedenis van de Vlaamse heuvels, Westvlaamse Archaeologica 9/2, 25-38, 1993, in Dutch)

Seidel U & Jeunesse C - À propos d'un tesson du Néolithique récent de la vallée du Neckar. La technique du bouton au repoussé et la question de la diffusion du Michelsberg (Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, tome 97, 229-237, 2000, in French)

Van Doorselaer A - Kemmelberg (W-Vl): Neolithische bewoningssporen en IJzertijd-bergvesting (Archeologie 1972/2, 79-80, in Dutch)

Van Doorselaer A - Kemmelberg (W-Vl): Neolithisch (Archeologie 1977/2, 75, in Dutch)

Vanmontfort B - Les Flandres durant la fin du 4e et le début du 3e millénaire avant notre ère. Inhabitées ou invisibles pour l'archéologie? (Anthropologica et Praehistorica, 115, 2004, 9 -25, in French)

Vanmontfort B - Converging worlds. The Neolithisation of the Scheldt basin during the late fifth and early fourth millennium cal BC (Ongepubliceerd proefschrift ingediend tot het behalen van de graad Doctor in de Archeologie aan de KU Leuven, Unpublished, 2004)

Vanmontfort B - Can we attribute the Middle Neolithic in the Scheldt and Middle Meuse basins to the Michelsberg Culture? (In Duhamel, P (Ed), Impacts interculturels au Néolithique moyen. Du terroir au territoire: sociétés et espaces, ARTEHIS Éditions, 2006)

RELATED KEMMELBERG LINKS:
Earliest Humans
Neolithic Enclosures

EXTERNAL LINKS:
Nat Commun 9
Western origin of the Michelsberg farmers...
Neolithic migrants and hunter-gatherers
Potential interactions between Mesolithics and Neolithics
When the First Farmers Arrived in Europe, Inequality Evolved (Scientific American)
Collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe
Premières occupations du Néolithique ancien dans le Nord-Ouest de la France (in French)
Les Flandres durant la fin du 4" (PDF, in French)
Le Néolithique moyen II dans le sud-ouest du Bassin de l'Escaut (in French)
The Human Impacts Database
Humanity's Influence on the Planet
Stone Age-like house (re)construction burned...
L'élevage d'animaux domestiqués (in French)
Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes
UNESCO - Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes
How To Make A Prehistoric Flint Axe | Stone Age Technology (YouTube)

RELATED HISTORY FILES LINKS:
Early Cultures of Europe
Neolithic Farmer Cultures in Europe
Sesklo Culture
Bell Beaker Culture
Modern Belgium
Modern Netherlands

 

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