Flint Mining in Northern France and Belgium:

Abstract

This article proposes an overview of current knowledge on flint mines in France and Belgium. Indeed since 1995 there has been no review of the documentation on this question and on the state of research regarding several themes: status of sites, dating, and product distribution. Several new discoveries in France resulted from preventive archaeology, such as Ressonssur-Matz, Ri-Ronai, Mesnil-Saint-Loup, Espins or Loisy-en-Brie. Other formerly known quarries were rediscovered or partially explored at Soumont-Saint-Quentin, Flins-sur-Seine and in the region of the Saint-Gond marsh. In Belgium, extraction pits were investigated at Rullen, and in the Mons basin, excavation was undertaken at several sites (Harmignies, Villerot, Mesvin) and productions were studied on others (Flenu, Douvrain). At the major site of Spiennes, new shafts and workshops were excavated, with discoveries of human skeletons in their fillings. Extensive radiocarbon dating was undertaken on several mining sites, but this was still insufficient to characterize all the extraction activity. While the dates indicate a peak of exploitation in the 4th millennium BC, certain mines such as Spiennes were exploited for a very long period, about 2000 years. The choices of production vary: certain mines with a local impact have productions restricted to rather domestic use, whereas others such as Spiennes and Jablines are massively exploited and diffuse at a regional scale, or even at a greater distance, extracting at depth and producing quality products with a high level level of know-how (Spiennes, Jablines). The analysis of the products distribution from these two mining centres shows that finished products circulated over several hundred kilometres