Marginal Mounds and Maritime Shepherding. A Landscape Archaeological Survey of a Late Medieval Sheep Mound in the Belgian Coastal Plain

The ‘Scaperie’ site in Knokke-Heist (Belgium), identified through a topographic analysis of a sixteenth-century map and located in a maritime sedimentary environment, serves as the focal point for this research. Employing a landscape archaeological approach, this study integrates multiple data sources including ceramics, historical maps, aerial photographs, LiDAR-data, geophysical surveys, and a coring survey. The dataset revealed the remnants of a anthropogenic sheep mound, evidenced by a localised microtopographic elevation, subsoil anomalies and surface artifacts associated with dairy production. More generally, this paper contributes to the understanding of the dynamic interplay between humans, sheep, and the coastal environment, offering new insights into historic land use and the archaeological characteristics of coastal mounded features. The study introduces a tripartite pattern of spatial organisation of animal husbandry, encompassing parent farms, droveways and satellite dwelling mounds. Encroached by the advancing embankments, this sheep-related taskscape was gradually marginalised both socio-economically and spatially.