the two research fields were treated together in the section entitled “anthropological and archaeological sciences.”

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A mammoth tusk from the Upper Paleolithic level at the site of Maisieres

(Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences)

Notwithstanding the affiliation of archaeology (now including prehistory) with history, its impact on academic historiography was negligible. In the five editions between 1900 and 1928 of the first volume of his monumental History of Belgium, the leading historian Henri Pirenne spent half a page on the prehistoric period. In his discussion of Celtic tribes and the early Roman occupation, almost no reference was made to archaeological evidence except for a few illustrations of archaeological finds. At the universities, archaeology had lost its initial importance through numerous educational reforms during the course of the nineteenth century, and it had disappeared as a legal academic discipline. Universities were entitled, however, to organize scientific programs freely, and some took the opportunity to create programs for classical archaeology and the history of art. At the University of Brussels at the end of the century there were courses on medieval archaeology and European prehistory.

An official structure for archaeological field research was created with the establishment of a State Service for Excavations in 1903 within the Department of National Antiquities at the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels. Fieldwork increased rapidly, and during the next twenty-five years, an impressive number of sites, mostly Neolithic and later, filled the archaeological distribution map. This work remained restricted to a documentary level and served essentially to enhance museum collections. There was little concern for interpretation and synthesis, and the archaeological profession remained exclusively francophone.

Even though Belgium officially became a bilingual country in 1898, French remained the language of effective power as the south was the politically and economically dominant region. Flanders struggled for its cultural identity and for education in its own language. It was only shortly after World War I that the University of Ghent became the first institution of higher education teaching in Flemish, and the academy remained exclusively francophone until 1938.