Verlaine is an archaeological site located within the Geer river valley in the Hesbaye region of central Belgium. The site, also called 'le Petit Paradis' (Little Paradise) is a Linearbandkeramik settlement, where at least six to ten houses set in parallel rows have been found. No radiocarbon dates have been taken at Verlaine, although the pottery suggests it belongs to the latter part of the LBK cultural phase (i.e., second half of the sixth millennium BC).
Excavations at Verlaine were led by Laurence Burnez-Lanottte of the University of Namur between 1997 and 2002; at least 18 additional sites are in the vicinity of le Petit Paradis. Verlaine is most interesting because of an unusually dense deposit of flaked stone (debitage and stone tools), in 22 discrete concentrations. One of the pits contained an astonishing 25,000 flint artifacts including 750 blade cores. Analysis of nearly 50,000 flint pieces by Pierre Allard of Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) along with reconstruction of 84 cores and core tablets allowed a close examination of the knapping scheme used by LBK flint knappers.
Sources
This glossary entry is part of the About.com Guide to the Linearbandkeramik and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Allard, Pierre 2005 Surplus Production of Flint Blades in the Early Neolithic of Western Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 8(3):205-223.
Dolukhanov, Pavel, et al. 2005 The chronology of Neolithic dispersal in Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(10):1441-1458.
