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During the last three decades intense archaeological prospection has taken place in the region of Sandy Flanders (Belgium), which is now one of the most intensively surveyed areas of NW Europe. This has led to the production of archaeological distribution maps, which show a distinct pattern regarding the temporal and spatial distribution of these archaeological sites. Some areas with a presumed high ecological value seem to have been attractive settlement locations in Prehistory. Habitations however seem to have ‘moved’ in time, and the same areas became completely ‘empty’ during Protohistory and even the Roman Period. During the Late Glacial and Holocene the landscape in the Belgian area of Sandy Flanders was subjected to major changes due to climatic fluctuations, and besides human factors, environmental conditions may have influenced settlement conditions throughout time and played a role in this change in site location and the occupational history of the region. In this light an inter-disciplinary project ’Prehistoric settlement and land-use systems in Sandy Flanders (NW Belgium): a diachronic and geoarchaeological approach’ (GOA project, UGent), involving archaeology, geography, palaeoecology, sedimentology and geophysical survey, has been undertaken. The study of both ‘empty’ and densely inhabited areas is ongoing and aims at analyzing the settlement dynamics of the area of Sandy Flanders in terms of environmental potentials. Likewise, we seek to investigate the reasons why some areas, which were inhabited in previous periods, were apparently not attractive anymore from the Metal Ages onwards. Indeed, to determine the suitability of a certain land type for a certain activity, it is necessary to understand the different types of land use, the soil characteristics and the environment at different time intervals. We present here the first results of the palaeoecological (mainly palynology and NPPs, but also plant macroremains, charcoal, diatoms, ostracods, molluscs, beetles and Chironomideae) and sedimentological (water content, LOI, magnetic susceptibility, gamma-density) approaches, which have been undertaken on the site of the Moervaart Depressie, a shallow but large palaeolake first densely inhabited and then deserted. They provide new insights in the palaeolandscape evolution of this area during the Late Glacial and the early Holocene, and may allow us to evaluate in detail how and to which degree this evolution determined the pre- and protohistoric occupation and exploitation within Sandy Flanders. Furthermore, significant emphasis is placed on the impact of prehistoric populations on both local and regional landscapes.

It is now widely accepted that human impact has been the most important factor effecting vegetation change, at least in Europe, during the last 6000 years. With the onset of agriculture and stock breeding, at the so-called Neolithic revolution, the human role changed from a passive component to an active element which directly affects nature. This change had dramatic consequences for the natural environment and landscape development. During this important period of transition, arable and pastoral farming, the actual settlements themselves and the consequent changes in the economy significantly altered the natural vegetation and started to create the cultural landscape with its many different and varying aspects. Conversely, human settlements and economic activity throughout the Neolithic are often closely related to natural environments and their changes induced by climatic variability. In this context, and in order to better understand anthropogenic/natural processes interactions in lowland ecosystems, an integrated research based on a multi-proxies approach has recently been undertaken in Wallonia (SE Belgium) within the framework of a convention between the “Service Public de Wallonie” and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, which aims at investigating the archaeological sites of the area in terms of palaeoenvironmental potentials. As a part of the archaeobotanical studies of this broader research, we present here the results of palynological analyses (pollen, NPPs, micro-charcoal) realised at two Middle Belgian sites: an Early Neolithic village (Belgian LBK) with two occupation phases (Fehxe-le-Haut-Cloché), and a Middle-Late Neolithic flint mines areaof around one hundred hectares exploited for more than 1 800 years (Spiennes). The purposes of this work are (1) to reconstruct the vegetation around each site and its evolution between the different occupation phases, (2) to elucidate human action on the vegetation history and questions relating to the vegetal economy during the Neolithic, and (3) to try to characterize local settlement dynamics, nature and function of different structure types, and specialized activities such as animal husbandry, cultures, waste management or mining. Our data represent the first “non-pollen palynomorphs” (NPPs) records in Wallonia and accent will be made here on these new biological indicators. In recent years the demand for more comprehensive past climatic and environmental reconstructions has stimulated the expansion of this new set of complementary microfossils. It is a broad group representing a wide variety of micro-remains of bacteria, protozoa, fungi, invertebrates, testate amoeba, algae and higher plant remains, which are encountered (but frequently ignored) during standard pollen analysis. They provide complementary insight into climate and/or human-driven processes, as well as vegetation shifts, even where pollen is scarce or absent (which is often the case in sediments from archaeological sites). If the value of NPPs as paleoenvironmental indicators has now been demonstrated, their identification (up to now more than one thousand NPPs have been described!) is still progressing and more and more studies are needed to improve our knowledge about their ecology and representativeness.

The main excavations at the Troisième caverne of Goyet in Belgium were conducted by Edouard Dupont in 1868 who identified Palaeolithic human occupations later attributed to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. These are represented by an archaeologi- cal record that spans the Mousterian, Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician, Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Magdalenian, and then extends into the Neolithic and historic periods. Due to the lack of detailed documentation of the excavated materials, their asso- ciation to a specific chronocultural context has been challenging. Morphometric and taphonomic analyses, combined with direct radiocarbon dating as well as isotopic and genetic analyses, were used to assign human remains to either late Neanderthals or an- cient modern humans from different chronocultural groups. In 2016 the first palaeogenetic investigation of Neanderthal specimens from Goyet was published [1]. Taxonomic assignment was confirmed by performing hybridization capture of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and later inspecting diagnostic mutations at nucleotide positions that distinguish modern humans from Nean- derthals. Moreover, a phylogenetic reconstruction placed seven nearly complete mtDNA sequences from Goyet within the diver- sity of late Neanderthal mtDNA. An around two-fold coverage nuclear genome was later sequenced from one of those individuals (Goyet Q56-1) [2], revealing a high genetic similarity to other late Neanderthals that is well correlated to their geographical dis- tance. Analyzing modern human remains retrieved at Goyet, mtDNA genomes were initially reported for two specimens directly dated to the Aurignacian, five to the Gravettian, and one to the Magdalenian [3]. Aurignacian-related individuals were particu- larly intriguing as they were found to carry mtDNA haplogroup M, which is almost entirely absent in present-day Europeans. For Gravettian- to Magdalenian-related individuals, the shift from U2/U5 to U8 haplogroups was detected locally - as in other regions of Central Europe - likely influenced by the genetic bottleneck during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Furthermore, nuclear sequences of five modern human individuals from Goyet were produced through genome-wide targeted enrichment [4] revealing local replacement between Aurignacian- and Gravettian-related populations. However, the genetic component associated with a 35,000-year-old individual (Goyet Q116-1) reappeared after the LGM, first in Spain and then in other European regions includ- ing in a Magdalenian-related individual from Goyet (Goyet Q-2). This individual was later found to be the best proxy for a genetic component that was largely displaced in Europe from around 14,000 years ago onwards while surviving in high proportion among Mesolithic individuals from Iberia [5]. Here we present new palaeogenetic data of Neanderthal and modern human individuals from this iconic site. First, we expand the molecular taxonomic identifications with three additional Neanderthal specimens and reconstruct their partial mtDNA genomes. Those confirm the general picture of a limited genetic diversity for late Neanderthals, which is also apparent among the Goyet Neanderthals. Second, working on modern human remains, we produced new mtDNA and nuclear data from four Gravettian specimens. They belong to mtDNA haplogroups U2 and U5, further extending the observa- tion of both mtDNA types being largely present in pre-LGM Europe. Moreover, their nuclear genomes provide additional evidence for the genetic affinity between Gravettian-related groups across Europe, from the present-day regions of the Czech Republic to Belgium and Southern Italy. In conclusion, the deep temporal range covered by the human remains from the Troisième caverne of Goyet provides the unique opportunity to describe within a single archaeological site the major genetic transformations that took place in Europe throughout the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic.

Pachacamac is a major pre-Columbian site located on Peru’s Central Coast. Covering approximately 6 km2, the site was occupied for over a thousand years before the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. In 2012, the Ychsma Project excavated a Late Intermediate Period (900 to 1470 AD) multiple tomb (Cx4) made of two funerary chambers covered by a vegetal roof, containing 89 deceased together with numerous grave goods. Over 60% of the individuals are subadults whose sex cannot be assigned based on osteological observations. Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis can be useful for sex determination, general mitochondrial lineage (haplogroup) and disease diagnosis. However, non-endogenous DNA contamination of archaeological material is a recurrent problematic, since excavation, handling and storage usually don't fit with the precautions recommended for ancient DNA analysis. Nevertheless, we obtained aDNA results from several human individuals recovered from the Cx4 context. Our objectives are to complete the demographic information and to characterize the health status of the population buried in this pilgrimage site dedicated to the eponymous healing god. Despite significant human modern contamination and low amounts of endogenous ancient DNA, our results show that sex could be assigned genetically in >80% of the cases, including subadults. Sex identification of infants, children and adolescents is crucial to fully understand this complex context and its funerary recruitment, and to perform an integrated and holistic analysis of all associated data. The genetic data were also used to estimate the presence of several pathogens using the KrakenUniq taxonomical classification tool.