Ramioul

The Meuse valley caves, and how the deep past is actually read.

SIX SECTIONS · TWENTY ENTRIES
All sections · Every entry

Section I · The Caves · Entry 01

Engis

Schmerling excavated a fossil skull here in 1829 that was the first Neanderthal ever found, three decades before the Neander valley named the species and a century before anyone recognised what it was.

A cave floor builds from the bottom up, so the order of the layers is the order of events. A find recorded with its layer sits in a sequence that can be argued about; a find without one is a shape in a drawer.

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A limestone cliff with a dark cave mouth part way up, wooded river valley below
01The Meuse gorge below Liège. The cave openings sit well above the present valley floor, which is why their deposits survived the river.Photograph · ramioul.org picture library

Six sections
Twenty entries

Depth is time, and someone has to write it down.

Register of caves

Section I · six of the sites
No.SiteCommuneExcavatorWhat it established
01 Engis CommuneEngis, Liège ExcavatorSchmerling, 1829–1830 What it establishedHuman bone in the same loam as mammoth, rhinoceros and cave bear, with worked flint. Engis 2 identified as Neanderthal in 1936. 02 Spy CommuneJemeppe-sur-Sambre ExcavatorDe Puydt and Lohest, 1885–1886 What it establishedTwo adult skeletons with Mousterian flint, reported by layer. Anatomy published by Julien Fraipont with Lohest. 03 Goyet CommuneGesves, Namur ExcavatorDupont, from 1868 What it establishedDeposits cleared by level and bagged by level, which is why the collections still answer questions and have been directly dated since. 04 Trou Al’Wesse CommuneModave, Liège ExcavatorModern campaigns What it establishedA long stratified sequence in the Hoyoux valley, drawn and sampled as it came down. 05 Chaleux CommuneHulsonniaux, Houyet ExcavatorDupont, 1860s What it establishedA large Upper Palaeolithic flint assemblage from the Lesse valley campaigns. 06 Ramioul CommuneFlémalle, Liège ExcavatorChercheurs de la Wallonie, 1911 What it establishedOpened by a society of amateur excavators in the Liège region, with Palaeolithic material in its deposits.

Five bands in a cut face

Section II · Stratigraphy
IModern disturbanceQuarry spoil and earlier digging. IIUpper PalaeolithicBlades, hearth material, reindeer and horse — a different production system. IIIMousterianLevallois and other prepared-core flint with cold-climate fauna. The layer the Spy skeletons came from. IVCave loamFine sediment washed and blown in, holding bone and flint together. VLimestone floorBedrock — the end of the reading.

Each band differs in colour, grain and content. The boundaries record what happened to the cave: a roof fall, a wet phase, an interval with nobody in it.

The numbering here is schematic. Where a real sequence is described on this site, the layer numbers are the ones the excavators used.

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An excavation trench with the layers visible in the cut face and a measuring scale against it
02A trench with the layers standing in the cut face and a scale against them. The excavator leaves one wall so the deposit can still be read after the digging stops.Photograph · ramioul.org picture library

Three to start with

Selected entries
A cleaned excavation section face showing distinct horizontal bands, scale bar against it

Stratigraphy

Depth is time

The principle the whole discipline rests on: what is lower was deposited earlier, unless something disturbed it.

A flint core and the point struck from it, with a technical diagram

The Flint

The Levallois core

The core is shaped first and the flake is struck last, which means the toolmaker had the finished shape in mind before the first blow.

An archive box of nineteenth-century excavation notes and labelled paper packets

The Finds

The first Neanderthal

Excavated in 1829 and not recognised for a century — the record shows the evidence arriving long before anyone had a category to put it in.

Supported by

Institutions who dig these valleys.

Where they are

The caves sit along a sixty-kilometre reach of the Meuse and its tributaries, between Charleroi and Liège in the Belgian provinces of Liège and Namur.

LiègeHuyNamurCharleroiEngisSpyGoyetTrou Al’WesseRamioulFurfooz20 km
Cave site named on this siteTown, for orientationProvinces of Liège and Namur · scale bar 20 km
03Six sites along the Meuse and its tributaries. Geometry and pin positions from the supplied survey data.

The Excavators

Section V · every entry
  1. 1829–30Philippe-Charles SchmerlingEngis. Human bone recorded with extinct fauna; published 1833–34, and rejected.
  2. 1860sÉdouard DupontLesse valley and Goyet. Cleared fast, by level, for a national collection.
  3. 1885–86De Puydt and LohestSpy. Two skeletons, and a note of the layer each find came from.
  4. 1886–87Julien FraipontThe Spy anatomy, published against the Neander valley find.

The difference between them is not what they found. It is how much of the context they wrote down — which is why material from 1886 can still be re-associated and material from 1829 cannot.