15-2023, tome 120, 4, p. 603-620 - Pironneau C., Aluwé K., Crombé Ph., Vandendriessche H. (2023) – 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’

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15-2023, tome 120, 4, p. 603-620 - Pironneau C., Aluwé K., Crombé Ph., Vandendriessche H. (2023) – 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’

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)

 

Camille Pironneau, Kim Aluwé, Philippe Crombé, Hans Vandendriessche

 

Résumé :

Situé dans la vallée de l'Escaut (Belgique), le site de Kerkhove est le seul gisement de la région datant du Mésolithique qui ait fourni des restes fauniques non brûlés. En effet, la préservation des ossements et des éléments organiques est rare en raison du substrat sableux de la région et de la sédimentation souvent tardive des niveaux d'occupation archéologique. Le site a été principalement occupé au Mésolithique ancien, entre 10 716 et 9 469 cal BP.

Le spectre faunique des occupations anciennes est varié et dominé par le chevreuil, le sanglier, le cerf et la martre des pins. Pour les ongulés, les Mésolithiques semblent s'être principalement tournés vers les groupes familiaux, privilégiant les individus adultes. D'une manière générale, les carcasses ont été rapportées entièrement sur le site, comme en témoigne la présence de l'ensemble des parties osseuses du squelette. Les traces de boucherie, retrouvées sur la majorité du corpus faunique et une grande variété d'éléments osseux, témoignent d'une exploitation exhaustive des carcasses, tant pour la consommation que pour la transformation.L'étude de la saisonnalité a permis de révéler des occupations débutant dès le printemps et jusqu'à l'automne ; plus précoces et complexes par rapport à ce qui était proposé par les études précédentes. Combinée à ces dernières, l'analyse des restes fauniques a permis d'enrichir les données sur la pluralité des activités réalisées à Kerkhove, permettant ainsi d'établir l'hypothèse de l'utilisation du site en tant que camp résidentiel.

De ce fait, l'étude de la faune de Kerkhove offre de nouvelles réflexions sur les interactions entre les hommes du Mésolithique et le gibier chassé, ainsi que sur les modalités d'occupations du gisement.

 

 

Mots-clés : Mésolithique, archéozoologie, Belgique, stratégies de subsistance, saisonnalité.

 

Abstract:

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 weathering, limiting the reading of potential anthropic traces. Nevertheless, the identification rate remains very high thanks to the over-representation of dental remains. The fragmentation rate is also high. However, certain bone parts are found in a complete manner, such as the bones of the carpus and tarsus, the petrous bones, and the phalanges. Thus, at Kerkhove, fragmentation is high and is mainly the result of post-depositional processes.

The rich faunal spectrum is dominated by roe deer, wild boar, red deer, and pine marten. The evidence of seasonality provided by ungulates indicates that hunting episodes were spread over a large part of the year. These hunts appear to have been mainly directed towards family groups, with a preference for adult individuals within deer groups.The canine remains found at the site were the subject of DNA analysis to determine whether they were dog or wolf. This was carried out at the Wallcome Trust Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network laboratory at Oxford University. Unfortunately, the conditions under which the bones were preserved did not allow the collagen to be preserved sufficiently to obtain relevant results.

The presence of all bone portions indicates that the carcasses were brought to the site in their entirety. The traces of butchery, found on most of the faunal corpus and a variety of bone elements, testify to an exhaustive exploitation of the ungulate carcasses, both for food and utilitarian purposes. Various activities have been highlighted: skin removal, emaciation (the most represented), disarticulation and dismemberment, and removal of tendons. The fracturing of bones, although not numerous, nevertheless testifies to a desire to extract the marrow. The remains of mesomammals, mainly represented by dental remains, also show traces of exploitation. The most represented activity is the removal of skins, the striations caused by which are visible mainly on the phalanges.

However, no evidence of animal hard material processing was observed, either on bones, antlers, or teeth. Observations under the microscope were made to remove doubt from certain pieces. However, the tracing studies carried out on the lithic artifacts showed that the exploitation of hard animal materials was indeed carried out on the site.The exploitation of large mammals and mesofauna for food and utilitarian purposes, as well as the results of the previous traceology analyses of the lithic artifacts, show that a multitude of activities were carried out on the site. It can therefore be stated that Kerkhove was a residential site.

From the point of view of occupation, the fauna made it possible to supplement the data already known. The study of seasonality has made it possible to highlight earlier and more complex occupations, starting in the spring. Furthermore, it would be interesting to deepen these first results with the help of cementochronological analyses and thus to specify the resolution of the ages obtained. Nevertheless, these data remain initial clues as to the possibility of occupations that were either more diversified in terms of their seasonality or longer.

Rapid analysis of the faunal spectra of the Middle Mesolithic and Late Mesolithic occupations was carried out. In both periods, ungulate remains are in the majority, but the internal classification within species changes: wild boar is the dominant species in the Middle Mesolithic, while in the Late Mesolithic, aurochs are the most represented. However, given the small number of faunal remains in the Middle Mesolithic and Late Mesolithic associated loci, it is difficult to propose comparisons and evolution between each of the assemblages. An attempt to compare species frequencies by period has nevertheless been made to propose first impressions. Thus, ungulates represent the major part of the remains during each period. The smallest mammals are only weakly represented or even absent except in the Early Mesolithic. Statistically, it is not fair to bring these comparisons and evolutions to conclusions and hypotheses. But it is interesting to have this first look at the possible variations in the faunal spectrum during the different Mesolithic periods.

The study of the Kerkhove fauna thus provides new results on the interactions of humans with other animals and introduces new perspectives on the occupation of the site.

 

Keywords: Mesolithic, zooarchaeology, Belgium, subsistence strategies, seasonality.

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