Research project SC/04 (Research action SC)
The research programme that we propose to develop in the framework of this network is a contribution to the study on human populations and prehistoric cultural traditions in relation to the evolution of the environment since the beginning of the last ice age about 100,000 years ago. This is a period characterized by a climatic context of extreme changes which saw Neanderthal man evolve into the modern-day populations and, in a way, constitutes an ideal field for studying interactions between man, his environment and the climate. This research programme covers a vast geographical area extending across Central Europe and the great plain of Northern Europe, from our regions to the borders of Ukraine and Byelorussia. With this in mind, several specific themes will be dealt with together by the different teams in the network; they concern prehistory and anthropology respectively, but also the stratigraphic framework and the evolution of the natural environment.
Such a research project calls for both precise data and a coherent approach in which identical methods applied to a vast territory allow comparisons on equivalent bases. This means setting up versatile interdisciplinary teams. In fact, the different teams concerned by this project have already worked together on the same research themes in the past, mainly in North-West Europe and partly in Central Europe.
Analysis of the archaeological data will be carried out by the ULg and the KUL; it will be focused on a study of several large open-air sequences showing the different stages leading from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic. From this point of view, the extensive data collected for over ten years and the exchange system set up by the commissions of the International Union of Prehistoric Sciences have made it possible to locate areas that are both the least known and the most promising for new research; several regions of Central Europe have been selected
for this purpose, regions where there is the highest density of open-air palaeolithic occupations well integrated in sedimentary
sequences.
At the same time, the stratigraphic study on sedimentary sequences associated with archaeological deposits will be carried out by the IRSNB team, which will act above all as a "service centre". This means various approaches, all of which in one way or another will provide information on the evolution of the environment, the vegetation, the fauna and the climate; in particular, they will concern sedimentology, mineralogy, palynology and animal palaeontology, but also an analysis of periglacial phenomena and fossil soils. The latter will be studied by the RUG team, specializing above all in the micromorphological approach to these units. Similarly, analysis of the chronostratigraphic framework of sedimentary sequences through the application of thermoluminescence will be conducted within the framework of the research project specific to the
FPMs. In both cases, field descriptions, sampling and interpretation of the results will be carried out in close cooperation with the different teams.
Finally, one last theme relating to the biological evolution of man will be developed by the Anthropology Section of the IRSNB. After establishing an inventory of all the human fossils found on the great European plain, a morphological and biometric description will be required in order to highlight the evolutionary aspects. The latter will then be compared with the parameters of the physical and cultural environment studied in
the other themes.
