The Mesolithic wetland-site of Kerkhove-Stuw (Upper-Scheldt valley, western Belgium)

Prior to the excavations at Kerkhove-Stuw, carried out in 2015-2016 by GATE bvba and Ghent University , data gathered through manual and mechanical coring demonstrated the presence of Mesolithic occupations on the top of a Late Glacial levee, adjacent to a palaeochannel of the river Scheldt . The presence of thick packets of Holocene peat and alluvial deposits on top of the levee indicated good preservation conditions for both the archaeological and environmental remains .Subsequent excavations over a surface of ca . 4000 m² led to the discovery of thirteen lithic concentrations dating from the early to the late Mesolithic, which were all fully exca-vated . The first 14C-dates on burnt hazelnut shells, however, suggest that the main occupation took place in the first half of the Boreal . Within these clusters, nine possible surface hearths could be derived from the spatial clustering of severely burnt lithic and organic residu, e .g . burnt hazelnut shells and calcined bone fragments . Besides lithics and burnt/charred organic remains, the site exceptionally yielded unburnt faunal remains . Despite their fragmentation, the analysis demonstrates the dominance of roe deer and wild boar, next to fur animals and numerous fish remains .High-resolution multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental research mainly focused on the channel infilling, which consists of calcareous gyttja covered by peat . According to the first results, sedimentation started in the Late Glacial (probably Younger Dryas) and continued during the Early to Middle Holocene . During the Mesolithic occupations the Scheldt seemingly was already reduced to a shallow, slow running stream, however with an abundant riparian vegetation . The latter was exploited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers for tool production (basketry, nets, ropes, etc .), as indicated by the wear traces on numerous flint tools