Towards a better understanding of fibre processing activities in Mesolithic wetland sites in Northwestern Europe: combining experimentation, use wear and residue analysis.

Here we present the results of a multidisciplinary functional study performed on the Mesolithic stone tool assemblage of Beveren Logistical Park Waasland West (LPWW), a wetland site-complex from Northwestern Belgium. The study was aimed at understanding the role of plant working activities within early Holocene wetland landscapes, with a particular focus on fibre processing activities. Preservation issues severely hamper our current understanding with few man-made fibres having been recovered from early Holocene contexts. Therefore, we rely on use wear patterns to gain insight in fibre processing activities. At Beveren, plant wear traces have been observed on tools with differing morphologies, and different gestures appear to have been used to process a variety of plants. The distribution patterns of plant wear traces on some tools suggest the presence of fibre processing activities at Beveren (LPWW).
To better understand the plant wear patterns and to explore the technical possibilities involved in the manufacture of fibres, a specific experimental approach was designed involving the creation of a botanical reference collection of local wetland plants and a large set of actualist plant processing experiments. Detailed microscopic analysis of the botanical references and the experimentally reproduced plant wear traces allowed us to draw comparisons between the plant composition and the wear formation. Particular attention was devoted to the effect of mineral plant elements, such as phytoliths or calcium oxalates, on the development of plant polish. The large variability of plant composition and plant polishes clearly illustrated the complexity of understanding plant wear patterns and their technical interpretations.