A01_09

Where are the dead? Prehistoric and historic funerary and population dynamics in Belgium, the impact of radiocarbon dating cremated bones

Capuzzo G¹, De Mulder G², Sabaux C^2,3,1, Dalle S^2,3, Boudin M⁴, Annaert R⁵, Hlad M^3,1, Salesse K⁶, Sengeløv A^1,2, Stamataki E^3,1, Veselka B³, Warmenbol E¹, Vercauteren M¹, Snoeck C³

¹Université Libre De Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, ²Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, ³Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, ⁴Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Belgium, ⁵Flemish Heritage Agency, Brussels, Belgium, ⁶Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

The radiocarbon dating lab at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels, Belgium, has a long tradition in radiocarbon dating cremated bones since 2003, after it was demonstrated that calcined bone can be dated by using the carbon in the bioapatite of bone (Lanting et al. 2001). This discovery has led to an exponential increase in the amount of ¹⁴C dates associated with cremation burials. Additionally, in the last four years, 500 new samples of calcined bone have been dated at KIK-IRPA within the EOS-funded CRUMBEL project (Snoeck et al. 2019), which studies the collections of cremated bone found in Belgium dating from the Neolithic to the Early Medieval period using state of the art analytical and geochemical analyses. The aim of this presentation is to explore the outcomes of this large dating campaign – a unique case in the European panorama – to shed light on continuities and discontinuities in past funerary practices and population dynamics in Belgium. This has been possible by statistically modelling ¹⁴C dates from settlements and funerary contexts (both cremation deposits and inhumation burials) between Late Neolithic and Early Middle Ages. Results highlight a major episode of population decline in the Final Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in correspondence with the 4.2 ka cal BP climatic event and a repopulation of Belgium in the Middle Bronze Age from 1800 BC. A remarkable increase in the number of cremation deposits is observed in the 1st century AD as a consequence of the romanization of the area.