This interdisciplinary project aims at investigating climate variability on a local/regional level and its impact on human lifeways at the transition from the Pleistocene (Younger Dryas) to the Early Holocene in the Meuse valley of southern Belgium. Climate reconstruction, focusing on the detection of Rapid Climate Changes (RCCs) will be conducted through high-resolution analyses of trace elements and stable isotopes from speleothems. This will be combined with high-precision U/Th datings, allowing to reconstruct RCCs at decadal to subdecadal resolution. This newly developed local paleoclimate record will serve as a base for investigating the human response to these RCCs. Therefor a high-precision chronology for the human occupation of the Meuse valley will be elaborated, by means of AMS-radiocarbon dating of mainly animal bones preserved in caves, rock-shelters and wetland locations used by hunter-gatherers. Based on this chronology, stone assemblages from these contexts will be selected for in-depth analysis into the knapping technologies and raw material procurement and circulation. Changes in lithic technology and raw material will subsequently be aligned with the paleoclimate record in view of assessing the synchronicity between RCCs and human behaviour and explore a potential causality. Using local climate proxies this project is unique as it will make climate change archaeological research less dependent on distant climatic records, e.g. the Greenland ice core record.