The roles of demic diffusion and/or local adoption in the transitions toward agropastoral Neolithic lifeways in the sandy lowland of Belgium

This project finally enables the full examination of five of the earliest agricultural sites ever excavated in the lowlands of Belgium. Focus on pottery and lithic finds will complement recently conducted environmental analyses and therefore facilitate synthetic inquiry into whether earliest farming in Flanders was established by local adoption of domesticates by indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherers or colonization by farmers from the loess areas. This project will provide important information on how early agriculture spread along the North Sea basin, and also possibly how it spread into the British Isles.