99 “Soil is not a static body; it is a dynamic, open system, in which a variety of processes may act to move not only soil matter, but objects (including artifacts), from one position to another. It must therefore be included as one of the major natural features we must contend with in interpreting the archaeological record.” — Wood and Johnson, 1978, p. 316 abstract This paper discusses the vertical distribution of artefacts of two Mesolithic-Neolithic sites within the sand belt of Belgium and the southern Netherlands. Contrary to prevailing theories claiming that sites from these archaeological stages are generally no more than mixed surface sites, the present study demonstrates the existence of a latent stratigraphy, which can be traced in the vertical distribution of the diferent categories of archaeological fnds (lithic artefacts, pottery sherds, carbonized plant remains, calcined bones). Furthermore it is suggested that the formation of these latent stratigraphies is due to long-term faunalturbation occurring in non-podzolic soils. keywords sand belt, vertical migration, faunalturbation, prehistory, latent stratigraphy, podzol soil doi 10.5281/zenodo.3420705 orcid Ph. Crombé: 0000-0002-4198-8057 BIOTURBATION AND THE FORMATION OF LATENT STRATIGRAPHIES ON PREHISTORIC SITES Two case studies from the Belgian-Dutch coversand area Ph. Crombé 1 L. Messiaen 1 D. Teetaert 1 J. Sergant 1 E. Meylemans 2 Y. Perdaen 2 J. Verhegge 1 ¹ Department of Archaeology, Ghent University, Belgium ² Flemish Heritage Agency, Belgium Corresponding author Ph. Crombé, philippe.crombe@ugent.be SOILS AS RECORDS OF PAST AND PRESENT. FROM SOIL SURVEYS TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES: RESEARCH STRATEGIES FOR INTERPRETING SOIL CHARACTERISTICS Proceedings of the Geoarchaeological Meeting, Bruges, 6 & 7 November 2019. Edited by J. Deák, C. Ampe and J. Mikkelsen. © Raakvlak