Goyet Caves

Goyet Caves

Grottes de Goyet
drawing of excavated canid skull
Location in Belgium
Alternate name	Caves of Goyet
Location	near Mozet village
Region	Samson river valley, Gesves municipality Namur province, Belgium
Coordinates	50°26′48″N 5°00′32″E / 50.44667°N 5.00889°E / 50.44667; 5.00889Coordinates: 50°26′48″N 5°00′32″E / 50.44667°N 5.00889°E / 50.44667; 5.00889
Type	carboniferous limestone
Length	250 m (820.21 ft)
History
Material	limestone Karst
Periods	Middle Palaeolithic to Iron Age
Cultures	Aurignacian, Gravettian, Magdalenian
Associated with	Neanderthals, Homo sapiens
Site notes
Excavation dates	1867,
Archaeologists	Edouard Dupont

The Goyet Caves (French: ''Grottes de Goyet'') are a series of connected caves located in a limestone cliff about 15 m (50 ft) above the river Samson near the village of Mozet in the Gesves municipality of the Namur province, Belgium. The site is a significant locality of regional Neanderthal and European early modern human occupation, as thousands of fossils and artifacts were discovered that are all attributed to a long and contiguous stratigraphic sequence from 120,000 years ago, the Middle Palaeolithic to less than 5.000 years ago, the late Neolithic. A robust sequence of sediments was identified during extensive excavations by geologist Edouard Dupont, who undertook the first probings as early as 1867. The site was added to the Belgian National Heritage register in 1976.

Located just south of the Goyet Castle the caves are essentially 250 m (820.21 ft) long underground galleries, rich in speleothems and carved out of the limestone during millions of years by the waters of the Samson river inside the 90 ha (222.39 acres) limestone massif.

The massif is divided into zones:

In 1999, an extensive network of galleries was discovered, consisting of a central and peripheral networks, named after particular areas: Régal des Fees, Atlantide, Salle de Cristal etc.

Edouard Dupont identified five sediment horizons or site concentrations in the cave, three near the cave entrance and two in deeper chambers. Marcel Otte resumed excavations during the 1970s. Further excavations took place from 1998 to 2004. Contemporary researchers assert that Dupont's 19th century excavation methods "did not meet today’s standards". His sediment sequences are considered to be of little accuracy and his discoveries in the archives of the Royal Belgielsan Institute of Natural Sciences have been reviewed and re-classified in recent years.

The site accounts for a remarkable variety of prehistoric objects: thousands of bones of prehistoric humans and large mammals, a whistle, stone artifacts with stylized engravings, an approximately 5,000 year old child's grave, the fossilized cranium of a Paleolithic dog, a knife made from a human rib, the largest collection of Neanderthal fossils of Northern Europe, hand axes, harpoons, necklaces, ivory chopsticks, engraved ivory platelets, carved reindeer horn and skinned and filleted human remains, that suggest cannibalism among Neanderthals.