The Gravettian sequence in Belgium: new observations from several key sites

In his founding work published at the end of the 1970s, Marcel Otte defined three typological facies within the Gravettian in Belgium (Otte, 1979). However, because chronological data were extremely limited at the time, the question of the potential temporal value of these facies was left open. It was not until the round table in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac in 2004 that the accumulation of stratigraphic observations and radiocarbon dates allowed defining their chronological order and proposing a reconstruction of the Belgian Gravettian sequence (Otte and Noiret, 2007). The three typological facies were then tied together in an evolutionary model based on several particular tool types that appeared within the earliest facies and persisted all the way until the most recent facies. However, this persistence of fossiles directeurs is only visible at cave sites, which are the most Gravettian sites in Belgium.
Building on the recently collected data on the open-air settlements of Maisières-Canal and Station de l’Hermitage, as well as on the caves and the Upper Shelter of Goyet, we propose to revise the classical seriation of the Belgian Gravettian. We can distinguish two main phases with more or less well-defined limits: a well-documented early phase that includes two distinct and clearly defined technological traditions is followed by a “recent” phase that is characterized by several typological markers but remains otherwise poorly known. In fact, no reference site is available at present for the “recent” Gravettian in Belgium. Instead, this phase is represented only at cave sites where the artefacts that can attributed to it are very often mixed with other chrono-cultural markers, including those belonging to the traditions of the early phase of the Gravettian.
Bibliography
OTTE M., 1979. Le Paléolithique supérieur ancien en Belgique. Bruxelles: Musée royaux d'Art et d'Histoire (Monographies d'Archéologie nationales, 5), 684 p.
OTTE M., NOIRET P., 2007. Le Gravettien du Nord-ouest de l’Europe. In: Le Gravettien: entités régionales d'une paléoculture européenne, Actes de la Table ronde, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, juillet 2004 (Paléo, 19), p. 243-255.