Archaeology of the haut pays (Belgium); the prehistory of the haine valley until the beginning of the bronze age

This work is an attempt to study the complete sequence of material cultures in an area of limited extent up to its settlement by metal using peoples. As such it is scarcely an originally conceived project for surveys of this kind exist with greater or lesser thoroughness for many other areas in northern Europe. It is our hope that we will be able to show the local material in a wider setting, to de- provincialize it, and to draw the attention of archaeologists to its general significance. In some instances, this attempt to provide a wider fulne of reference for the material has led to consideration in detail of finds far removed from the modest valley which was for some time our home. In this the "tail" often tends to wag the "dog ", but it is such a fascinating "tail" that the temptation to deal with it at length could not be resisted, unhappily for the brevity of the work.The text is divided into four main sections. The first/dealing with Paleolithic finds and their setting in the rather complex geology of the valley, is an attempt, in the light of recent research, to bring some order into a chaotic mass of long -known material. It is by no means a definitive study, for, under the circumstances of inadequate documentation of finds, poorly donducted excavations and similar hindrances, one can but hope to give an indication of the state of the situation.The discussion of the Mesolithic settlement of the valley is so brief that it scarcely merits a separate chapter, but this is because of the limited nature of the finds themselves.In the discussion of the Neolithic and Aeneolithic periods, we have tried to shed some new light on some old problems, and the bulk of the effort is devoted to these sections (chapters 6 & q). The results of our field work and study of correlative material does, accomplish this we hope, though we feel that the scheme outlined in the last chapter is capable of considerable refinement

Geophysical and Archaeological Characterization of a Modest Roman Villa: Methodological Considerations about Progressive Feedback Analyses in Sites with Low Geophysical Contrast

The low contrast in physical properties of archaeological elements compared to the host soil is a common drawback in geophysical surveys applied to subtle archaeological sites because those contrasts are usually what are being measured by most instruments. Furthermore, when archaeological elements and construction remains are placed within the same package of materials, differentiation of each can make the interpretation of geophysical data sometimes difficult. In this work we propose a dynamic, integrated approach for the characterization of an archaeological site with simple Roman construction materials in order to evaluate methodological considerations in the evaluation of this kind of sites. This approach includes: (i) a preliminary evaluation of construction material characteristics, according to the background provided by the historical and geographical context and from previous excavations, (ii) measurements of magnetic susceptibility of archaeological and natural materials in the site for direct modelling of the expected anomalies; (iii) a geophysical survey including magnetometry, multifrequency electromagnetic (EM) method and ground penetrating radar (GPR) (100, 250 and 500¿MHz centre frequency antennas); (iv) geophysical data evaluation for planning subsequent systematic surveys; (v) dynamic interpretation of geophysical results through careful data evaluation of all previous steps. The final archaeological model from geophysical data has been successful due to the manner of data interpretation looking for orthogonal patterns of geophysical anomalies that were hypothesized to be subsurface walls. Modelling was then followed by archaeological excavations consisting of three trenches where the walls were exposed. The integration of geophysical data with excavations has permitted to evaluate significance of the different geophysical analysis and to identify their archaeological meaning. The proposed sequential methodology represents an innovative manner of analysis (i) in subtle sites where construction remains are scarce and the absence of well-defined geophysical contrasts can limit the results of usual surveys and (ii) to increase the efficiency in the evaluation of more extensive survey area