Quaternary palaeobotanical evolution of Northern Belgium

Abstract

The palaeobotanical data set of northern Belgium has to be divided into two parts: a post-glacial part including the Lateglacial and the Holocene period, and a Pleistocene part including the entire period between the beginning of the Quaternary and the end of the Weichselian glacial. A continuous and sufficiently documented record is present for the post-glacial period. As a standarised summary has been published recently (Verbruggen et al., 1996), this period is not discussed systematically. This paper focusses on the Pleistocene part of the data. The main problem about this data is the fact that most of it is unpublished. By incorporating the unpublished data and confronting them with the present-day theories from the neighbouring countries, it became possible to present an overview of the Pleistocene palaeobotany of northern Belgium. Interesting new data are added for the Saalian-, Eemian- and Early-Weichselian period.