Mammoth taphonomy of two fluvial sites from the Flemish Valley, Belgium

In Belgium, more specific in the Flemish Valley, large quantities of mammalian remains are found in several localities. The Flemish Valley is a palaeovalley dating from the Middle Pleistocene; it was filled up during the Weichselian. The richest assemblages of the Flemish Valley are Zemst IIB, dating from the very beginning of the Weichselian and Hofstade I, dating from the Middle Weichselian. The fossils accumulated mainly through gradual, long-term processes as indicated by the scattered and dispersed spatial distribution of the bones in the fluvial deposits, the abundance of scavenged and weathered bones and the low numbers of carnivores. The bones are from mammals that died within the confines of the river valleys, due to predation, disease, accident or old age. Remains of large grazing mammals (woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, steppe bison, and horse) dominate the faunal assemblages. Woolly mammoth is the best-represented species. At Zemst IIB, mammoth is represented with 747 numbers of identified specimens (NISP) and 26 minimum number of individuals (MNI) and at Hofstade I with 508 NISP and 30 MNI. The age profiles of woolly mammoth from Zemst IIB and Hofstade I differ from a catastrophic profile and resemble more an attritional profile.