Neandertal Studies in Belgium : 2000 – 2005

On several occasions since 1830 Southern Belgium Meuse Basin caves yielded Neandertal remains, some of them having a major influence on the development of palaeoanthropology as a distinct scientific discipline; in particular, the discovery of human fossils in 1829–1830 at Engis, of a mandible in 1866 at La Naulette and of skeletons in 1886 at Spy. Yet to this day the context of these old finds is not well known. But new finds, from the last two decades, at Couvin, Scladina and Walou took place within modern multidisciplinary field and laboratory studies, backed up by stratigraphic positioning, different dating methods and palaeoenvironmental recordings. In parallel, most of the old and recent Neandertal fossils were the object of new anthropological laboratory studies using state-of-the-art technologies, notably 3D reconstruction from computer tomography scans. This article overviews all these contributions, focusing primarily on the work of the last