Can calcined bones be used to date Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic open-air sites? A case-study from the Scheldt basin (NW Belgium)

Crombé, Philippe; Boudin, Mathieu; Strydonck, Mark Van

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2021.105411

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…1 An alternative explanation could be that an altogether different process could have been responsible for the more even distribution of artefacts among C5 and C7. Indeed, the crescent-like morphology of C7 could, for example, point to the existence of a tree-fall feature at this spot, the destructive impact of which are well documented on Belgian Mesolithic sites (Crombé, 1993;Langohr, 1993;Noens et al, 2012;Van der Sloot et al, 2014;Vandendriessche et al, 2012). If a tree-uprooting occurred at the location of C7, it is not unimaginable that some of the flints from the adjacent C5 could have been caught in the unearthed root mass and could have been subsequently redeposited in the pit-structure left behind.…”

Section: Refit Line Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Catching a Glimpse of Mesolithic Settlement Patterns and Site Re-occupation Through Lithic Refitting, Raw Material Characterizations and Absolute Dating

Vandendriessche

Maldegem

Crombé

2022

J Archaeol Method Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporaneity of spatially distinct activity areas at prehistoric sites is often inferred based on lithic refit connections alone. These connections are, in addition, only rarely discussed in detail, nor are they explicitly subjected to any form of critical assessment. In this paper, we present a combined use of Bayesian modeling of 14 C-dates, raw material characterizations and lithic refitting to investigate the occurrence of interconnected artefact clusters at the Belgian Mesolithic site of Kerkhove. Besides this, a set of parameters is presented that is employed to control the reliability of the refit connections. The three proxies applied in this paper suggest that the Early Mesolithic occupation of the site was organized as two diachronic and more or less parallel alignments of artefact clusters. Based on the lithic refitting results, two scenarios can be considered to explain the formation histories of these linear arrangements. The individual artefact clusters incorporated within them were either occupied in a strictly contemporaneous manner or in a (partly) sequential manner.

show abstract

Section: Refit Line Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 94%