The past along the track
In 1995 the Ministry of the Walloon Region set up a huge archaeological project after finds were made during works on the HST line, for which the knowledge and expertise of a great many specialists was required. Dominique Bosquet, an archaeologist in our Prehistory department, was asked to coordinate the project. With the help of his colleague Aude Van Driessche, this research got off to a flying start…
The work of the archaeologist
For almost ten years the team of archaeologists worked hard to thoroughly investigate the area along an 80 km of railway track. “We started by prospecting,” Dominique tells us. “It is mostly agricultural land, and archaeological objects are regularly brought to the surface when the soil is ploughed. A walk through the ploughed fields is often enough to establish whether or not there is any interesting material present.”
However, most of the relics are to be found just below the tilled surface. And this is why the team dug test trenches cutting through this layer: strips measuring 2 by 10 meters were dug in strict patterns using an excavator. “This enabled us to investigate 10% of the total area, at a rate of 1.5 ha a day. We looked for darker stains. These ‘anomalies’ might have a natural cause (the roots of a dead tree, an animal’s hole…), but in some cases they are man-made. We select the main sites on the basis of number and importance of these anomalies, and free up the area around them.”
An extremely precise plan is built up before the finds are taken to the research lab for analysis. This is where Aude steps in: a graphic artist, she spends most of her time drawing out the maps and sketching the finds. But she also helped with the field excavations. “It is great to be involved in all aspects of the project. I can still remember my first ever find: a piece of pottery with a very clear fingerprint made thousands of years ago. It was overwhelming.”
The excavations have yielded a few remarkable finds, and we will look at two in particular here: a settlement of several houses from the Neolithic Period (5000 years ago) and a Neanderthal encampment from the Middle Paleolithic Period (80 000 years ago).
