No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2016
The oldest traces of Velzeke go back to the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, followed by a Gallo-Roman settlement and a later medieval village. Although the excavations document the history of the site in general, radiocarbon was used to clarify the successive phases within each feature. The results showed that the ditches at the Roman settlement and the neighboring temple area were already used during the Late Iron Age. The filling up of the ditches could be 14C correlated to a Gallo-Roman occupation phase. The oldest Christian cemetery at the site of the medieval church predates the construction of an important Carolingian stone building (9th to 10th centuries.). The stratigraphically lowest sediments of the ditches, surrounding the Carolingian church, are synchronous with the latest fill of the Iron Age ditch. According to historical and top-onymical sources the area of the Iron Age ditch becomes at that time part of a medieval agricultural field system.