Neanderthal Site attraction opens in Limburg

Flemish minister-president  Geert Bourgeois opened an archaeological site in Lanaken, Limburg, at the weekend that contains one of the oldest forms of human settlement found in Belgium.

The special historic value of the site is illustrated through three clay walls, with layers providing an overview of different periods in history. A 60-metre path represents a voyage through time, with every 15 centimetres standing for a period of 500 years.

The point marking 46,000 years ago shows traces of the region’s first Neanderthals, with a few thousand of them present. Archaeologists on the site found tools, silex stones and bones of mammoths, rhinoceroses and Arctic foxes.

The oldest traces of the Neanderthals found here date from about 140,000 years ago, making them the oldest traces of human settlement so far found in northern Belgium. The Neanderthals didn’t live on the site permanently, but different groups stayed there temporarily at various times.

The exhibition, meanwhile, takes visitors back in time about 200,000 years and explains the first tracks of modern humans discovered in Africa.

The development of the clay quarry cost €1.2 million, subsidised by the Flemish, provincial and municipal governments. The city of Lanaken owns the site, which can only be visited via guided group tours.

Photo courtesy Flemish Heritage Agency