Mp Britanija

7/30/2019 Mp Britanija

1/17

The Early Middle Palaeolithic in Britain:archaeology, settlement history and humanbehaviourMARK WHITE,1* BECCY SCOTT1 and NICK ASHTON21 Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK2 Department of Prehistory & Europe, British Museum, 56 Orsman Road, London N1 5QJ, UK

White, M., Scott, B. and Ashton, N. 2006. The Early Middle Palaeolithic in Britain: archaeology, settlement history and human behaviour. J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 21 pp.

525541. ISSN 0267-8179.

Received 20 April 2005; Revised 17 March 2006; Accepted 4 April 2006

ABSTRACT: A number of archaeological sites dated to MIS 8 and MIS7 and containing Early MiddlePalaeolithic Levalloisian assemblages can now be identified within the British Palaeolithic record.These provide a mixture of high- and low-resolution signatures, which together permit the recon-struction of aspects of early Neanderthal behaviour, settlement history and technological organisationwithin the British Isles. Much is certainly missing, but it is now possible to begin the task ofdisentangling the previously conflated Middle Palaeolithic, separating those sites belonging to theMiddle Pleistocene from those dating to the last climatic cycle. This paper presents the first attempt tosynthesise the data from the Early Middle Palaeolithic and presents some of our preliminary andtentatively held interpretations of what it might mean. Copyright# 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEYWORDS: Middle Palaeolithic; Levallois; MIS 7; Neanderthal.

Introduction

Almost 20 years ago, John Wymer (1988) made a provisionalattempt to correlate the British Palaeolithic record with therevised and expanded Quaternary terrestrial framework thenemerging. In doing so he was amongst the first to strongly assertthat evidence existedfor human occupation during a previouslyunrecognised interglacial between the Hoxnian and theIpswichian, but that the Ipswichian itself lacked any solidevidence for human presence (see also Currant, 1986). Thesucceeding years have seen considerable refinements to thispicture, with advances in the fields of lithostratigraphy,

biostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy (e.g. Bridgland, 1994,Bridgland et al., 2004; Schreve, 1997, 2001a,b; Bowen et al.,1989; Keen, 1990), and new investigations at several keylocalities (e.g. Buckingham et al., 1996; Schreve et al., 2002;Schreve et al., in press) making it clear that two additionalinterglacials, representing global Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 9and 7, can be identified in the British terrestrial record. Agrowing number of Palaeolithic localities can now be attributedto these stages, and this expanded terrestrial framework hasgiven archaeologists a new sense of order within the artefactualrecord.

Theperiod of MIS9-7 is a particularly critical one in Europeanprehistory. It witnessed the first lasting changes in human

cultural practices for some 300000 years, away from the

committed production of handaxes and towards a technologi-cal system organised around the Levallois method of corereduction in archaeological terms, the transition from theLower to Middle Palaeolithic (see papers in Ronen (1982)). Thisshift is underlined by a number of other changes in humanbehaviour, reflecting more profound transformations inhominid adaptive, social and cognitive structures (White andAshton, 2003; Gamble, 1999). For some, this represents thefinal major dispersal ofarchaichumans out of Africa (Foley andLahr, 1997), with the last common ancestor of modern humansand Neanderthals dispersing into Europe and bringing withthem new modes of tool production and behaviour. Others,however, view the palaeoanthropological and archaeological

evidence as showing continuity between the European Lowerand Middle Palaeolithic, rather than sudden rupture (Stringerand Hublin, 1999; Stringer, 2002; White and Pettitt, 1995;White and Ashton, 2003).

The potential offered by the modern Quaternary frameworkfor looking at the Lower to Middle Palaeolithic transition in achronologically meaningful fashion and at its growingimportance to the question of modern human origins (seeMcBrearty and Brooks, 2000; McBrearty, 2001) has reawa-kened interest in this period, and highlighted the EuropeanEarly Middle Palaeolithic as a promising area of study. Becauseof its strong tradition of interdisciplinary Quaternary studies,Britain has a good number of sites that can be confidentlyassigned to this period. For various historical and taphonomicreasons, some of these sites frustratingly lack the fine-grainedbehavioural information that can be gained from a single well-preserved and well-excavated locality such as Maastricht-Belvedere. However, taken together they allow questions to be

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2006) 21(5) 525541Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1034

* Correspondence to: M. White, Department of Archaeology, University of

Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]


2/17

assessed that operate at larger scales and address patternsbeyond the level of the single site.

This paper represents the first concerted attempt to synthesiseand interpret this evidence. For current purposes we followWhite and Jacobis division of the period into an Early BritishMiddle Palaeolithic (MIS 87) and a Late British MiddlePalaeolithic (beginning in terminal MIS 4/early MIS 3),separated by a period of human absence lasting some

100000 years (cf. White and Jacobi, 2002; Ashton, 2002;Ashton and Lewis, 2002; Currant and Jacobi, 2002). Weconcentrate on key sites that have recently been attributed onnon-archaeological grounds to the period MIS 97 (Fig. 1),outlining the archaeological signatures they contain and settingthem in their broad environmental and geological context. Thisthen forms the focus of a discussion on the technology,landscape-use and demography/settlement history of earlyNeanderthal populations in Britain and their wider Europeancontext. However, we do not rehearse the debates surroundingtheir age, which are dealt with in detail elsewhere (e.g.Bridgland, 1994; Gibbard, 1985, 1994; Schreve, 1997,2001a,b; Keen, 1990; Stuart, 1982).

The Early Middle Palaeolithic sitesof Britain

It is the widespread appearance of Levallois technology ca.300250 kyr that marks the LowerMiddle Palaeolithicboundary in Europe (cf. Ronen, 1982). Instances of earlier

Levallois are documented, including the well-knownexamples from Cagny la Garenne in the Somme (MIS12/11;Tuffreau, 1995), Ricksons Pit, Swanscombe (Roe, 1981. 78)and Bowmans Lodge (Tester, 1950); the latter two occurringat the top of the Boyn Hill/Orsett Heath Formation of theThames and dating to late MIS11 (Bridgland, 1994; Whiteet al., 1995). These precocious examples do not, however,constitute a lasting shift in human technological practices at

this time, but instead serve to show that Levallois wasimmanent within the Acheulean technological repertoiresfrom which it eventually emerged, and could potentially arisein many places at many times (see Tuffreau (1995), White andAshton (2003), Brantingham and Kuhn (2001), White andPettitt (1995), Debono and Goran-Inbar (2001) and Rolland(1995) for different opinions of the emergence of Levallois).These early examples are often formed from handaxes brokenduring manufacture, very thick complete handaxes with longaxial thinning flakes (pseudo Levallois removals; Callow,1976), or simply cores that fortuitously approach the Levalloismethod. It is only after MIS 9 that Levallois technologybecomes a more-or-less consistent part of human technologi-cal practices in Britain and Europe. Hosfield (2005) has

recently argued, based on modelling of demography usingartefact densities in the Solent, that the lasting uptake ofLevallois at this time relates to a population peak in MIS 9(Wymer (1988) also noted the archaeological richness of thisperiod); with larger populations engendering strong channelsof cultural transmission and providing the necessary socialconditions and networks for the widespread adoption oftechnological innovation.

Figure 1 Location map of key sites discussed in the text

Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 21(5) 525541 (2006)

526 JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE


3/17

Sites situated within the Lynch Hill/Corbet

Tey Gravel (and deposits of equivalent ageoutside the Thames Valley)

Purfleet, Essex (Fig. 2)

The earliest routine use of prepared core technology currentlyknown in Britain comes from Botany Pit, Purfleet. Here asubstantial core-and-flake industry with few formal tools wasrecovered from 3.4 m of sand and gravel banked up against aChalk river cliff. The industry shows an undeveloped form ofprepared core working, described by Wymer (1968, 1985) asproto-Levallois and by Roe (1981: 228) as a reduced Levallois

with simplified preparatory stages.The Botany Pit sediments form part of a long and complex

sequence of deposits exposed in a number of pits in the Purfleetarea. Research conducted during the 1990s established thatthese represent an abandoned meander loop of the Corbets TeyFormation of the Thames, correlated on lithological andbiostratigraphical grounds with MIS1098 (Bridgland, 1994;Schreve et al., 2002). The Botany Gravel represents only theupper part of the overall Purfleet sequence and belongs to aperiod of cooling/cold climate during terminal MIS 9/early MIS8 (Schreve et al., 2002); laterally equivalent deposits inGreenlands Pit, 1 km to the east, provided an average ageestimate by OSL of 32438 kyr (E. Rhodes, pers. comm.,2003). These attributions make the contained Levalloisassemblage amongst the earliest in Europe. According toWhite and Ashton (2003) the nature and antiquity of thePurfleet material reveals the gradual development of theLevallois technique within Europe, fusing elements of core

working and biface production to enable the consistent

production of medium- to large-sized flakes.Included in the Botany Pit material are a small number ofhandaxes, recorded by the excavator Andrew Snelling ascoming from the base of the gravel and resting directly onChalk. These possibly pre-date the core-and-flake assemblage,representing the final occurrence of the Acheulean industryfound in the stratigraphically lower Middle (Bluelands) Gravelat Bluelands and Greenlands Pits, or they could be con-temporaneous. The sheer number of artefacts found at BotanyPit led Wymer (1968, 1985) to conclude that it was a quarry orworkshop. Local topography undoubtedly played a part;situated near the inside of a large bend, the channel margins atBotany Pit were very gently inclined and cut through the flint-bearing seam in the Chalk, probably presenting a wider and

more inviting riparian plain with easier access to raw materialsthan Bluelands/Greenlands at this time (Peter Allen pers.comm. 2003).

Cuxton, Kent

Six proto-Levallois cores and flakes were reported by Tester(1965) from the Rectory Site, Cuxton. These were found in a0.5 m thick bed of River Medway sand and gravel resting onbrecciated Chalk at 18.5 m OD, in apparent association with199 handaxes and 450 other artefacts. Later excavations to theeast of the Rectory Site (Cruse, 1987) exposed a much deepersequence containing a non-handaxe industry stratified beneatha handaxe assemblage, and revealed that Testers work hadsampled only the top feather-edge of the terrace remnant.Dating the site has proved difficult, as it lies within the Medway

Figure 2 Schematic section through the Greenlands/Bluelands and Botany Pits at Purfleet showing possible correlations and contained archae-ological assemblages


THE EARLY MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC IN BRITAIN 527


4/17

Gap, a part of the valley where long-profile correlation isdifficult and altitude is a poor guide. Bridgland (1996: 2003)examined several possible projections, concluding that givenits surface height it could correlate with either the Lynch Hill/Corbets Tey or Taplow/Mucking Formations of the Thames; asthe sequence is a denuded and landscaped remnant (Tester,1965: 33) the former age was preferred. This would make thematerial from the top of the sequence similar in age to that at

Purfleet, although its precise connection with the handaxeassemblage and indeed its true Levallois character is open toquestion (see Callow in Cruse (1987)). Organic preservationwas poor throughout.

Sites situated on top of the Lynch Hill/Corbets Tey Gravel

West London: Acton, Creffield Road (Fig. 3)

The best record of the Creffield Road site remains J. Allen

Browns (1887) description of four small and closely spacedgravel pits excavated here during the late 1800s. The sedimentsexposed in these pits belong to the Lynch Hill Formation(MIS1098) and comprised a coarse fluvial gravel overlain bybrickearth and mantled with contorted (solifluction) gravel.The fluvial gravel was interrupted by three black seams thatBrown believed to be ancient land-surfaces, situated at depthsof 1112 ft, 8 ft and 6 ft (ca. 3.33.6 m, 2.4m and 1.8 m). Eachof these produced a quantity of artefacts (2, 8 and 500respectively), the uppermost representing a major accumu-lation on the surface of the gravel immediately beneath thebrickearth (Brown, 1887: 5561).

The main assemblage is characterisedby Levallois points and

flakes, plus a very small number (n$

10) of heavily reducedcores. Handaxes are absent, the two listed by Roe (1968) notactually being associated with the pits described by Brown.Brown believed the site to represent a flint workshop and noted

the presence of flint nodules >30 cm diameter, but such aninterpretation does not really explain the overall nature of theassemblage. Material resulting from either end of the reductionprocess is present on one hand, large cortical flakes reflectinginitial core preparation, and on the other, end products andcores reduced to the point of exhaustion. However, materialresulting from the intervening stages of the reduction sequenceis under-represented. One possibility is that previously curated,

exhausted cores and used (potentially hafted) end-productswere imported into and ultimately discarded at the CreffieldRoad locality, where they were replaced by cores prepared onthe spot and subsequently transported away. However, theexposed area was rather small and the vagaries of collectionand taphonomy too improperly understood to make more solidinferences at present. No environmental data is available.

West London: between Slough and Acton

Notable quantities of Levallois material were also collectedfrom gravel pits exploiting Lynch Hill terrace deposits around

West Drayton and Yiewsley (Brown, 1895; Lacaille andOakley, 1936; Collins, 1978; Ashton et al., 2003). Contextualinformation for most find-spots is minimal, but where availableindicates that fresh Levallois flakes and cores, resulting fromdiverse exploitation strategies, were recovered from the surfaceof a coarse gravel and sealed by solifluction gravel andbrickearth (Brown, 1895; Ashton et al., 2003); the latter oftenreferred to the polygenetic Langley Silt Complex (Gibbard,1985). Handaxes were also recovered from these localities, butthese came from within the gravel and are in a differentpreservational state.

Theposition of the Levallois industries in West Londonshowsthat the archaeology lies on top of the final fluvial deposits of

the Lynch Hill Terrace underlying brickearth; but there is anabsence of Levallois artefacts from similar contexts on thesurface of the Taplow Gravel. This indicates that the artefactswere deposited after the aggradation of the Lynch Hill Gravel

Figure 3 Section through the deposits of the Lynch Hill Formation at Creffield Road, Acton, showing location of main archaeological horizons(modified from Brown (1887))




5/17

but before the (?final) aggradation of the Taplow Formation, andsuggests that the archaeology dates to somewhere within laterMIS 8 and MIS 7. That the artefacts are in fresh conditionsuggests that they were buried without much movement shortlyafter discard. An MIS 8 or MIS 7 date is therefore favoured forthe archaeology at both the West London sites and CreffieldRoad (Ashton et al., 2003). Insufficent pollen was recovered toconvincingly characterise the environment exploited (Hubbard

in Collins (1978)), and no other proxies are present.

Sites within theTaplow/Mucking Formation(and deposits of equivalent age outside theThames Valley)

Aveley, Essex (Sandy Lane Quarry and PurfleetRoad) (Fig. 4)

Theimportant fossiliferous deposits at Aveley (Fig. 4), part of the

Taplow/Mucking Formation of the Thames (Bridgland, 1994),played an instrumental role in identifying the MIS 7 interglacialin the terrestrial record (cf. Schreve (2001a) and referencestherein). However, until recent salvage excavations during theupgrading of the A13 dual-carriageway (Schreve et al., inpreparation) they had not produced any archaeology. A smallnumber of artefacts have now been recovered from Unit 1(n5) and from Unit 4 (n3), the latter including a small,intensively worked Levallois core (Fig. 4).

Schreve (1997, 2001a; Schreve et al., in preparation) hasdemonstrated that the faunas from the upper and lower units atAveley both represent fully temperate conditions, but differsubstantially in composition and environmental range. Themammals from the lower sands and lower silts show a

predominance of woodland species, whereas those from thedetrital muds and upper silts are characterised by theintroduction of open grassland taxaconclusions largely inagreement with the pollen, molluscs and beetles from the site.

While slightly brackish molluscs in the upper silts testify to highsea levels during the later phase, a period of connection to theContinent is argued to have prevailed to allow this influx of newspecies. Assuming a flooded Dover Strait during MIS 7, alowering of sea level facilitating reconnection would have beennecessary, an event that most plausibly occurred during a coldperiod. Schreve (1997, 2001a) therefore suggested that the twofaunal suites belonged to different warm sub-stages of MIS 7,

and were separated by a cold event. Although there wascaution as to precisely which sub-stages were represented, 7dwas tentatively favoured over 7b because the MIS curvesuggests that 7d was a more substantial cold spell with morelikelihood of a significant drop in sea level. In this case, thelower temperate units might represent 7e and the upper ones7c7a. Regardless of the details, the archaeological importanceof Aveley is that the small artefact collection taken from limitedexposures clearly demonstrates a human presence in bothearlier and later parts of the interglacial. These faunaldifferences have been used as the basis for attributing othersites to early or late MIS 7 (see below and Table 1).

Northfleet, Kent; Ebbsfleet Valley and BakersHole (Fig. 5)

Prolific quantities of Levallois material have been recoveredfrom deposits infilling the Ebbsfleet valley, a south banktributary of the Thames. The major units comprise a basal chalkrubble (coombe rock) infilling a channel cut into the Chalk,overlain by fluvial gravel and a complex sequence of fluvial andcolluvial silts (Smith, 1911, Burchell, 1935, 1936a, 1936b,1957; Kerney and Sieveking, 1977; Bridgland, 1994; Wenban-Smith, 1995) (see Fig. 5).

Thousands of artefacts in fresh condition were collected from

the coombe rock, including large Levallois cores, flakes andother debitage, together with some rolled material (Smith,1911; Abbott, 1911). Hominids appear to have been exploitingsubstantial flint nodules obtained from the weathered slope,

Figure 4 Section through the deposits of the Mucking Formation at Sandy Lane Quarry, Aveley (modified from Bridgland (1994))




6/17

and while the cores have frequently been argued to show theprofligate use of flint, each producing only a single flake, thereis actually some evidence of core re-preparation and recurrentflaking techniques. Several hundred artefacts, including

Levallois flakes, recurrent Levallois cores and four handaxes,mostly in fresh condition, were also recovered from thefluviatile gravel and silt above the coombe rock (Burchell,1935, 1936a, 1936b, 1957; Kerney and Sieveking, 1977). Somematerial from the gravel is conjoinable (Wenban-Smith, 1995),showing the material is in primary context, although somespatial relocation seems likely from their overall condition.

The Ebbsfleet Valley sediments have been correlated with

MIS 876 on lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphicalgrounds (Bridgland, 1994; Schreve, 1997), the incision of thechannel and emplacement of the coombe rock attributed to lateMIS 8/early 7. The sedimentology and elements of the fauna(i.e. Coelodonta antiquitatis) from these basal units indicatecold and open conditions. Vertebrates and molluscs from theoverlying fluvial gravel and silt, however, show the develop-ment of fully temperate but still open conditions, withindications of nearby woodland and running water (Wen-ban-Smith, 1995; Schreve, 1997). Human use of the gravelsurface apparently extended throughout the warming limb ofthe interglacial.

An episode of cooling followed by a return to full interglacialconditions (Burchells Temperate Bed) is shown by the fossils

and micromorphology of the colluvial and freshwater siltshigher up the sequence (Burchell, 1957; Kemp, 1995; Wenban-Smith, 1995), probably representing one of the cold sub-stagesof MIS 7. Significantly, there is no Levallois material from theseupper units (Coulson, 1990), which contain only rolled materialpresumably derived from the Boyn Hill terrace above (Scott,Ashton and White, in preparation). These units are also muchmore extensive than the underlying fluvial beds (Bridgland,1994) and probably masked the gravels originally targeted byhominids as a source of raw material.

Crayford and Erith, Kent (Stonehams Pit,

Norriss Pit, Rutters Pits, Furners Pits, SladeGreen) (Fig. 6)

Crayford is another critical but poorly understood site. It washere in Stonehams Pit that Spurrell (1880a, 1880b,1884) found

Table 1 Summary of faunal differences between sites attributed toearly and late MIS 7 after Schreve (1997)

Earlier MIS 7 Later MIS 7

InsectivoraCrocidura cf. russula

Lagomorpha

Oryctolagus pusilla

RodentiaCastor citellus

Castor fiber

Dicrostonyx torquatus

Lemmus lemmus

Arvicola terrestris cantiana2

Microtus gregalis

Microtus oeconomus

Apodemus maastrichtiensis

CarnivoraUrsus arctos

Crocuta antiqua

Crocuta crocuta

Panthera leo

Panthera pardus

ProboscideaPalaeoloxodon antiquus

Mammuthus primigenius

PerissodactylaEquus ferus

Equus hydruntinus

Stephanorhinus hemitoechus

Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis

Coelodonta antiquitatis

ArtiodactylaDama dama ssp. indet.

Bos primigenius

Boscf. priscus

Figure 5 Section through the Ebbsfleet Channel sediments excavated by the British Museum (modified after Kerney and Sieveking (1977) andBridgland (1994))




7/17

large numbers of in situ laminar Levallois artefacts, manyconjoinable, in association with animal bones. Similar findswere later made in adjacent pits (Chandler, 1914, 1916). Thebasic sequence comprises brickearth above gravelthe formerdivided into lower fluviatile and upper colluvial components(Fig. 6). Most of the artefacts came from the Lower Brickearth.Spurrells main floor was a sandy horizon within the LowerBrickearth, illustrated as occurring well above the base (1880a:fig 1); Chandlers putative continuation of this horizon waspositioned at the base (Chandler, 1916: 241242). Otherswere recovered at various levels with at least one from justabove the Corbicula bed at Erith (Kennard, 1944). Spurrell also

mentions artefacts in a different preservational state from thesurface of the underlying gravel, and Chandler reportedworkmens tales of knives (?laminar Levallois) from here.Kennard supposed that the surface of the gravel had formed anolder landsurface related to the initial downcutting to thisterrace level.

The prevailing environments during the deposition of theLower Brickearth and Corbicula bed were essentially similar(Kennard, 1944). The molluscs reveal a slow-flowing river, withlittle aquatic vegetation and non-marshy banks set in dry, opengrassland; woodland and semi-aquatic species are sparse. Thewestern edge of the river was set against Chalk and Thanet Sandthat provided abundant flint (Spurrell, 1880b; Chandler, 1914,1916). The mammals show a similar range of environments and

famously contain a mixture of cold- and warm-loving species,which, according to Schreve (1997), may be explained by morecontinental temperate conditions in Britain at this time, withwarmer summers but harsher winters. The presence ofCorbicula fluminalis, however, would seem to point to bothwarm summers and mild winters, the size distribution showingoptimum rather than stressed conditions (Kennard, 1944),although its recent southerly distribution may be masking widertolerances (Keen, in Schreve et al. in preparation).

The Crayford deposits have been assigned to the Taplow/Mucking Formation, correlated with MIS 876 (Bridgland,1994), an attribution supported by an AAR ratio on Bithynia of0.170 0.02 (Bowen et al., 1989). Precisely where within thissequence they belong is a contentious yet important issue forthe current paper. Currant (1986) and Sutcliffe (1995) preferredan MIS 6 age because several cold-climate species are present,including Lemmusand Ovibos. Bridgland, however, suggestedthe main archaeological horizons were of late MIS 8/early MIS

7 age, with the sparser higher occurrences showing persistenthuman presence throughout 7. Schreve (1997) offers a solution:that the deposits date to terminal MIS 7, as evidenced by simi-larities to the upper faunal suite at Aveley, the presence of cold-adapted species, and the dentition of Microtus oeconomus,which shows a transitional morphotype between the fullytemperate MIS 7 specimens and those from sites assigned toMIS 6.

West Thurrock, Essex (Lion Pit Tramway Cutting)(Fig. 7)

The Lion Pit Tramway Cutting, West Thurrock, is the only majorEarly Middle Palaeolithic open-air site to have been subject torecent excavation, albeit on a very small scale (ca. 5.25 m2)(Bridgland, 1994; Bridgland and Harding, 1995; Schreve et al.,in press). Including the earlier collections made by Warren(Warren, 1923a, 1923b), the site has produced some 250artefacts, including Levallois cores, Levallois flakes and a rangeof associated debitage. The relatively undisturbed nature of thesite is demonstrated by refitting, although finer debitage isunder-represented, presumably winnowed out. The main findhorizon was within the upper part of the basal gravel, abovewhich lay 10 m of fine-grained sediments, including fossilifer-ous sands and silty clay, and laminated beds of possible

estuarine origin (Fig. 7). The sequence forms part of the Taplow/Mucking Formation of the Thames, with the gravel believed todate to the MIS 87 transition, immediately following down-cutting to this terrace level. Directly associated environmentalindicators are limited, but given the context a cool climate andfairly open conditions probably prevailed. Mammalian andmolluscan remains from the overlying sediments attest todeposition under wooded, fully temperate conditions duringMIS 7 (Schreve et al., in preparation). The sequence rests onchalk breccia containing sparse flints, the coarse gravelproviding the major source of flint raw materials.

Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire (Dixs Pit)

The Stanton Harcourt channel deposits form part of thecomplex Summertown-Radley Formation of the Upper

Figure 6 (A) Composite section through the various pits at Crayford and Erith (modified after Kennard (1944)); (B) Spurrells original section showingdeposits at Stonehams Pit, with position of main archaeological horizon and flint bands marked (after Spurrell (1880a))




8/17

Thames. They comprise silts, sands and gravels with a basalboulder bed, occupying a shallow SWNE trending single-thread channel incised into Oxford Clay (Briggs et al., 1985;Bridgland, 1994; Buckingham et al., 1996). The deposits arehighly organic, with rich floral and faunal assemblages pointingto fully interglacial conditions, the local environment beingdominated by herb-rich grassland and some deciduouswoodland. The site has been assigned to MIS 7 onbiostratigraphical and lithostratigraphical grounds (Briggset al., 1985; Buckingham et al., 1996; Bridgland, 1994), withSchreve (1997) favouring the later part of the interglacial owing

to the correspondence of the mammalian assemblage with thatfrom the upper part of the Aveley sequence.To date, the site has produced 27 artefacts, including 11

handaxes, a Levallois-like core and two chopping tools (Scottand Buckingham, 2001; Buckingham et al., 1996; Kate Scottpers. comm., 2004). Although most are in an abradedcondition, the core and some of the flakes are practically mintand may represent a human presence contemporary with thechannel deposits (Buckingham et al., 1996). The derivedmaterial is probably of pre-MIS 7 origin, and may come fromthe same original source as the reworked, abraded handaxe

Figure 7 Excavation plan and geological section through the archaeological levels at Lion Pit Tramway Cutting, West Thurrock

Figure 8 Section through the deposits at Brundon (after Wymer (1985), based on the descriptions of Moir and Hopwood (1939))




9/17

assemblage from the cold-climate Stanton Harcourt Gravel(MIS 6) upstream at Gravelly Guy (MacRae, 1990, 1991;Bridgland, 1994; Scott and Buckingham, 2001).

Ipswich, Suffolk (Stoke Tunnel, Maidenhall,Halifax Junction Pipeworks)

Best known from the work of Layard (1912, 1920) and Wymer(1985), the Stoke Bone Bed is part of a 30m sequence of (mostlyfine-grained) Pleistocene sediments of the River Gipping/Orwell, banked-up on their southeast side against an erodedslope of London Clay. As its name implies, the site was richlyfossiliferous, yielding a suite of mammals now regarded astypical of later MIS 7 (Schreve, 1997); a position within theinterglacial that does not conflict with Turners post-temperatepollen spectrum (in West, 1977). Archaeology from the BoneBed is sparse, with only 20 or so pieces coming from within orjust above the main fossiliferous horizon (Wymer, 1985: 232),but these include two or three classic Levallois cores and someLevallois flakes, many in fresh condition. Once again, the

environmental indicators suggest fully temperate conditions,with high insolation and summer temperatures of at least 17 8Cattested by Emys orbicularis. The local landscape wasdominated by open-grassland with an important woodlandcomponent; a body of slow-flowing freshwater ran nearby.

Brundon, Suffolk (Jordans Pit) (Fig. 8)

This site lies on the south bank of the River Stour at about 30 mOD. Moir and Hopwood (1939) described a 14m thicksequence of glacial, fluvial and colluvial deposits (Fig. 8). The

fluvial gravel of Bed 3 contained a substantial (although reportsof actual numbers vary) archaeological assemblage, includingboth handaxes and Levallois material. Additionally, a smallercollection of fresh Levallois material in association withmammalian and molluscan remains was recovered from amanganese-stained gravel horizon at the base of Bed 3, abovethe temperate beds. This was seen by Moir as a palaeo-landsurface. Statements by Moir and Hopwood (1939) andWymer (1985) indicate that the artefacts from throughout Bed 3are in mixed preservational state, but they disagree on whetherthe handaxes and Levallois material can be separated on thisbasis. A mixture of two or more assemblages is probably presentwithin the gravel, with a more coherent assemblage in thestained horizon at its base. The gravel is in places remarkably

coarse (M.J.W., personal observation).The faunas from the site reveal a fairly quick-flowing river,

situated in a dry open grassland landscape with some woodlandand scrub vegetation. Both the molluscs and mammals havebeen compared with the MIS 7 site at Ilford (Schreve, 1997;Kennard, in Moir and Hopwood, 1939), an attribution notcompromised by some early U-series dates of 230 30 and174 30 kyr (Szabo and Collins, 1975). Schreve stresses thesimilarities of the Brundon vertebrates to the upper mammalianassemblage from Aveley, implying human occupation towardsthe end of MIS 7.

Holbrook Bay, Suffolk (Stutton and Harkstead)

Fossils and archaeology have been collected from the foreshoreand cliffs at Holbrook Bay, on the Suffolk side of the Stour

estuary, for over a century (Whitaker, 1885; Evans, 1897;Spencer, 1958, 1962, 1970; Wymer, 1985). The sequenceexposed in the low cliff section shows 5 m of Pleistocene sandand bedded silts (brickearth) with infrequent gravel, predomi-nantly resting directly on London Clay but occasionally on abasal gravel. About 100 artefacts in a variety of preservationalstates are definitely recorded from here, including ca. 10 rolledhandaxes, a Levallois core and several Levallois products

(Wymer, 1985: 210 and 236). Most were recovered out ofcontext, with only one Levallois flake and a fresh partialhandaxe (made on a flake) recorded as definitely coming fromthe brickearth (Wymer, 1985). According to Wymers (1985)observations, the rolled handaxe assemblage is probablyeroding from the basal gravel, with the brickearth containinga sparse Levallois industry.

Schreve (1997) compared the fauna from both the Stuttonand Harkstead localities with that from the upper part of theAveley sequence (i.e. later MIS 7); this suggests a positionwithin the interglacial compatible with the Zone III pollenspectrum identified by Sparks and West (1963) from sedimentsbeneath the foreshore. As at most sites of this period discussedabove, the local environment was largely open grassland

adjacent to a slow flowing stream. Patches of woodland grewnearby. Some species are indicative of high summer tempera-tures (e.g. E. orbicularis) although more continental climaticindicators are also represented (Schreve, 1997; Sparks andWest, 1963)

Selsey, West Sussex (Life Boat Station Channel)

Pleistocene deposits exposed on the foreshore at Selsey haveproduced another very small Levallois assemblage. Thesediments here fill a channel incised into Eocene Bracklesham

Beds and consist of freshwater silts and detrital muds overlainby estuarine clays (West and Sparks, 1960). The whole iscapped by 23 m of raised beach gravel. The muds, which arehighly organic, have yielded five flint artefacts including aLevallois core. Another Levallois core and other stone toolshave been collected from the foreshore (Wymer, 1999).

The site has been attributed to MIS 7 on the basis ofaminostratigraphy and biostratigraphy (Bowen et al., 1989;Keen, 1995; Sutcliffe, 1995), and preserves a fairly highresolution environmental picture. A change from cold to peakinterglacial conditions is registered in the flora and fauna of thefreshwater beds, with the estuarine clays (which containbrackish invertebrates) heralding the beginning of a marinetransgression (West and Sparks, 1960; Parfitt, 1998). Palyno-

logical studies (West and Sparks, 1960) demonstrated con-comitant and progressive forestation, culminating in a denselywooded landscape characterised by a number of thermo-philous species. Associated faunas indicate a complex mosaicof riparian, woodland and open grassland habitats. Parfitt(1998: 122) places the site in late MIS 8/early MIS 7. Schreve(1997), however, views the fauna as more typical of later MIS 7,in which case, the cool, low sea-level conditions in thefreshwater beds may represent a cold sub-stage of MIS 7 ratherthan MIS 8 (cf. Bates et al., 2003: 333; and the Aveley sectionabove).

Pontnewydd Cave, Clwydd, North Wales

Pontnewydd Cave is situated in Carboniferous Limestone in theElwy Valley, about 50m above the modern river. The




10/17

cave system preserves a fragmentary record of infillingand erosion spanning at least 300 000 yr, with importantaccumulations of artefacts, fauna and human fossils, thelatter showing Neanderthal affinities (papers in Green, 1984;Aldhouse-Green, 1995).

Altogether, the site has produced over 600 artefacts,including handaxes and Levallois material (Green, 1984;Aldhouse-Green, 1995). Most are on locally occurring volcanic

raw materials, which are notably difficult to work. This at leastpartly explains the crude nature of the tools and inept Levalloistechnique found at the site (Newcomer, 1984; Aldhouse-Green, 1995). The majority of the artefacts (and the humanremains) come from the Lower Breccia, an allochthonousdebris flow deposit. Hence, the artefacts are thought to haveoriginated outside the cave, and show damage consistent withexposure in a cold climate prior to their introduction.Aldhouse-Green (1995) suggested that the cave may havebeen incidental to the human occupation, but that the inferredrange of activities shows that it was more than just a transitorycamp.

A dating program using TL and U-series has provided aminimum age estimate of about 220 kyr for the Lower Breccia

(Aldhouse-Green, 1995), which fits with the MIS 7 attributionfor the mammalian fauna (Schreve, 1997). The fauna from theIntermediate Beds beneath the Lower Breccia is dominated bytemperate woodland elements, potentially reflecting the earlierwooded phase of MIS 7, but the Breccia itself contains amixture of open/closed and warm/cold adapted species,probably representing both cold and warm sub-stages laterin MIS 7 (Aldhouse-Green, 1995; Schreve, 1997). There is littleevidence for human presence in the earliest phase, butoccupation may have spanned both cold and warm eventslater in the interglacial.

Discussion

The British record reveals the presence of human groups with aMiddle Palaeolithic technology from early MIS 8 (ca. 300 kyr)and perhaps even earlier. No evidence is preserved for humansettlement during the cold extremes of the MIS 8 glacial, butsites on top of the Lynch Hill/Corbets Tey and at the base of theMucking/Taplow Formations (and their age equivalents else-where), indicate both early and later MIS 8 occupation.According to the dating (summarised in Table 2), settlementthen persisted throughout several different phases of the MIS 7interglacial, but by MIS 6 humans had disappeared from the

British landscape. As in the rest of northwest Europe, humanswere therefore active in a wide range of inferred climaticconditions and environmental settings, from cool/cold open-steppe to fully-temperate mixed-deciduous forest mosaics,affordinga diverse array of variably distributed resources (Table 2).

Although 14 sites of mixed quality might seem an inadequatefoundation on which to begin to address questions of humanbehavioural significance, this actually represents a strongdatabase compared with many other regions of Europe, andtheir ages are all fairly well constrained. True, few of the sitesdiscussed have been carefully excavated or provide high-resolution data pertinent to more ethnographically orientatedquestions, but taken together they do allow us to detect coarser-scale patterning relevant to questions of settlement history,landscapes and the organisation of technology within them.Having a fairly firm chronological base and being archae-ologically situated between the Lower Palaeolithic and classicMousterian, the British evidence can thus now be brought to

bear upon wider questions of the long-term cultural andbehavioural trajectories of archaic human populations inEurope. Judging from recent research, such information is likelyto assume vital importance to our understanding of the nature,loci and timing of the evolution of behavioural modernity(dErrico, 2003; Henshilwood and Marean, 2003).

What follows is an initial attempt to make some behaviouralinferences regarding the British Early Middle Palaeolithic,

augmented by evidence from the European record. These areemerging areas of research interest and must be regarded aspreliminary pending more detailed analyses (Scott, in prep-aration), future work and new discoveries.

Lithic technology

Archaeologically, all the assemblages from the sites describedabove show the variable but consistent use of Levallois. In fact,with the notable exception of two sites not yet fully publishedand not featured here Broom, Dorset (recently dated to MIS 8by OSL; Hosfield and Chambers, 2002); and Harnham,

Wiltshire (attributed on the basis of OSL, AAR and biostrati-graphy to an interstadial within late MIS 8; Wenban-Smith pers.comm.; Bates etal. forthcoming)all sites thus far attributed tothis period contain Levallois.

The earliest site, at Purfleet, is dominated by a crude (proto-)prepared core technology argued to show the in situemergenceof Levallois from earlier European core technologies (Whiteand Ashton, 2003), a suggestion in accord with evidence fromother very early Middle Palaeolithic sites in Europe (e.g. Orgnac3; Moncel and Combier, 1992). Later in MIS 8, a suite of fullyformed Levallois strategies are evident, including lineal,laminar and various recurrent methods (cf. Boeda, 1995;Boeda et al., 1990). These various strategies co-exist within

assemblages, suggesting that they were part of an interchange-able suite of technical options open to Neanderthals, and thereis evidence that knappers actually switched between differentmethods during the reduction of individual cores (cf. Dibble,1995; Bietti and Grimaldi, 1995; Texier and Francisco-Ortega,1995; Jaubert and Farizy, 1995; Schlanger, 1996).

At British sites where Levallois was practised, handaxes aregenerally absent, or present in very small numbers. The largecollections of handaxes known from some sites (e.g. the WestLondon group) are in a different preservational state to theLevallois material and derive from different archaeologicalhorizons. This fits with a more general trend seen about thistime, whereby Levallois technology largely replaces handaxesover several areas of the erstwhile Acheulean world (cf. Goren-

Inbar and Belfer-Cohen, 1998). Pontnewydd is the only Britishsite where numerous handaxes and Levallois material maygenuinely co-occur. This may reflect local circumstancesAldhouse-Green (1995) describes the Levallois method here ascrude and inept, possibly due to the quality of the materials.Humans may therefore have reverted to handaxes to fulfil thetasks given over to Levallois products elsewhere, perhapssuggesting that handaxes were being maintained within thebody of technological knowledge. Equally, it may just be anartefact of the derived nature of this material. Interestingly, thedistribution of handaxe sites during this period appears to be inthe West (Broom, Harnham, Pontnewydd), with Levallois moststrongly represented in East Anglia and the Thames Valley,although we must stress that these are tentative and preliminaryobservations and it would be premature to make too much ofthis.

The inverse relationship between handaxes and Levallois inthe British sites discussed, and others elsewhere in Europe




11/17


12/17

(although it must again be stressed that this is not a pan-European phenomenon), suggests that during the LowerMiddle Palaeolithic transition Levallois to some extent usurpedthe role previously held by handaxes. Assuming that handaxeswere cutting tools, microwear suggesting a common appli-cation being carcass preparation (Keeley, 1980; Mitchell, 1995;Austin et al., 1999), then Levallois products might be seen assimilar multi-purpose knives (e.g. Beyries, 1987; Plisson and

Beryies, 1998). In terms of technology and morphology, manylarge Levallois products resemble unifacial handaxes; the formhere results from shaping the exterior of a core prior todetachment, rather than afterwards as for non-Levallois flake-blank handaxes, or as part of a dedicated project to shape theinternal volume of a block, as with nodule-formed handaxes. Infact, several British sites (e.g. Bakers Hole) also containpreferential Levallois flakes bearing limited but neverthelessbifacial/alternate retouch, producing a handaxe in everythingbut name. The range of other Levallois methods evident in therecord would have produced a further variety of fairlyregularised medium-large cutting instruments. Most of thelarger British assemblages also show some use of recurrentLevallois methods, with several episodes on a single core. Not

only do these represent a more economical use of lithicresources, one core capable of replacing numerous largecutting tools, but also allows the production of varied forms,emphasising the flexibility and versatility (Nelson, 1991) of thissystem.

Levallois core working is thus a fusion of the principles ofboth debitage (core working) and faconnage (shaping) into afresh technological system (White and Ashton, 2003) onepossessing a greater, more flexible and more controlled range ofoutcomes than the systems from which it emerged. Further-more, rather than being constrained by the design of a tool,Levallois products provided flexible supports for a range ofother tools on the same blank (cf. Boeda et al., 1990). This

represents a conceptual as well as operational change inarchaic human technology. These techno-functional enhance-ments, and the right social conditions at this time (Hosfield,2005), may have been the catalysts needed for the finalsuccessful spread of Levallois throughout Europe. In earlierperiods not only might the social conditions not have beenright, but the so-called Levallois products tend to be adjuncts toother systems of either debitage or faconnage (i.e. the LowerPalaeolithic handaxe, as a shaped tool, is effectively alreadyexhausted), not so much advantageous innovations to beadopted as by-products that quickly fade from view.

Technological organisation in the landscape

Throughout Europe Levallois is regarded as being a moreintensively curated, mobile technology than that whichpreceded it, a reflection of the extension of the chaneope`ratoire in time and space during the Middle Palaeolithic(White and Pettitt, 1995). Detailed studies from a number ofEuropean sites indicate the movement of Levallois flakes asboth blanks and retouched tools, as well as the transport ofcores as the sources for such flakes (Roebroeks et al., 1988).These represent different solutions to anticipated future needsfor cutting edges, the choice between both options (core orflake transport) illustrating the potential flexibility of Levalloisflaking (White and Pettitt, 1995). Where heterogeneous rawmaterial sources allow pertinent observations to be made,Levallois products are frequently made on non-local rawmaterials, again suggesting a mobile and curated technology(Geneste, 1985). Similarly, where found, Middle PalaeolithicT

able2

(Continued)

Site

Probableage

(MIS)

Assemblage

size

Industry

Contextandintegrity

Environment

Rawmaterialproximity

Possiblesources

StantonHarc

ourt

Later7

27

flakes,cores

Withinchanneldeposits.

Secondarycontext

Riverine.Warm;opengrassland,

deciduouswoodland.present

Exotic

UpperThamesgenerallypoorinflint.

Afewpoo

rqualitylocal

resourcesnearestfreshflint

availablefromChilternHills

Selsey

Later7

4

Levallois

Detritalmudsinfillingcha

nnel;?

Primarycontext

Riverine.Warm;opengrassland

withwoodlandpresent

Local

SitesituatedonBracklesham

beds,Cha

lkoutcropswithin

afewkm

StokeTunneland

Maidenhall,

Suffolk

Later7

20

Levallois

WithinBoneBedandpu

rpleclays.?

Primarycontext

Riverine.warm;opengrassl

and,

woodlandpresent.

Local

Rangeoflocalglacial/fluvial

gravels;Chalkpossibly

outcroppingwithin510km

tonorth




13/17

handaxes appear to have served the equivalent role oftransformable and transported tool supports (Roebroekset al., 1988; Turq, 2000; Soressi and Hays, 2003; White and

Jacobi, 2002).Patterning evident within the British dataset shows a range of

technological practices in relation to particular places in thelandscape (Table 2). Sites with large assemblages are generallysituated adjacent to a source of raw material Chalk exposures

or coarse gravelswhereas sites with small assemblages arefound away from immediate raw material sources and are infine-grained contexts. So, there is an underlying correlationbetween context and assemblage size. There are a number ofprosaic ways in which this might be explaineddifferingsedimentation rates, collection intensity and opportunity, andthe size of exposuresalthough none offer a particularlycompelling case. Another way of looking at it is as reflecting adifferentiation of place, with different discard patternsresponding to planned/anticipated use of fixed and mobileresources (cf. Ashton, 1998). This may reflect just one of anumber of intensifying aspects of Neanderthal landscape useand technological organisation (for examples of LowerPalaeolithic spatial patterning in relation to local resource

distribution see Tuffreau et al., 1997; Roberts and Parfitt, 1999;Pope and Roberts, 2005).

Using Turqs (1988, 1989) definitions, the larger assemblagesmight be characterised as a mixture of extraction andproduction sites (often called workshops) and mixed strategysites where Neanderthals engaged in primary reduction, toolmanufacture and, probably, use. These were well-knownplaces in the landscape to which Neanderthals returnedrepeatedly, primarily to use the abundant raw material plus anyother attractive resources, resulting in the accumulation of largeartefact assemblages, including much debitage. The smalleroccurrences correspond most closely with Turqs episodicsites, ephemeral occupations away from gearing-up stations

that represent specific episodes during which the mobileelement of the tool kit was brought into play. These smallassemblages may therefore result from limited discard ratesaway from production sites, with flakes, flake tools andexhausted cores dropping-out of circulation most frequently.More complex patterns may also be apparent within the Britishdataset, as the situation at Creffield Road makes clear. Thus,from the earliest Middle Palaeolithic the British record shows apattern consistent with that elsewhere in Europe, where it istaken as evidence for varied but logistical use of technology,with clear levels of future planning and anticipation of action inthe landscape.

One question that might be asked, however, is how far thistruly represents changes in landscape use at this time, and how

far it reflects the different research methods employed whendealing with Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites. That is, giventhe small number of Early Middle Palaeolithic sites available tous in our present corpus, we use them all, both excavated andcollected, rich and poor. This way patterns become evident thatmay actually exist earlier, but which we miss because in theLower Palaeolithic, where the available data is much greater,we concentrate only on well-studied, rich sites. A similarexercise in the Lower Palaeolithic may show more complexlandscape use patterns than currently perceived. Indeed,Popes work at Boxgrove (Pope, 2002; Pope and Roberts,2005) has highlighted some interesting earlier practices, albeitat a smaller scale. Here, Pope sees assemblage composition asstructured by discard patterns and landscape use, withhominids more likely to discard bifaces at well-known, well-used locations and far less likely to do so at one-off use sites. Inthis way Lower Palaeolithic hominids may have been engagedin the unconscious construction of cultural landscapes, with

ostensibly routine and context reinforced behaviour formingdense clusters, clusters that come to signal areas of socialaggregation and help to maintain group cohesion.

What we are perhaps seeing in the Early Middle Palaeolithic,though, is the intensification of these behaviours and theirextensionin space and time, withmore complex use of differentparts of the landscape. Surveys of high-level surface sites insouthern Limburg have demonstrated the co-existence of a

variety of locations showing markedly different technologicalpractices, which contrasts with the essentially regular (vari-ation on a theme) strategy of transporting prepared cores andflakes evident at Maastricht-Belvedere in the valley below(Kolen et al., 1999; Roebroeks et al., 1992). While aspects ofthis variation relate to the nature of proximate raw materialsources, differences independent of such constraints are alsoapparent. At some upland sites heavily retouched tools andexhausted cores were discarded at flint extraction locations,and typological contrasts existed between the retouchedartefacts left at particular sites. Kolen et al. (1999) suggestedthat the uplandlowland contrasts possibly represented thespatial organisation of technology and the different tasksundertaken at different points in the landscape. Taken together

we might see a scenario in which hominids geared-up on thehigher ground, in situations which afforded both access to rawmaterials and monitoring of the open valley below, thenventured into the valley bottoms primarily for subsistenceactivities, before returning to discard and replace exhaustedtoolkits. As tentatively suggested earlier, Creffield Road mayhave served as a similar gearing up location within its valleycontext, where materials were renewed for use elsewhere in thelandscape. The contrasts between the high-level sites them-selves might equally reflect different activities undertakenbetween forays into the valley bottom.

Curiously, surveys of absolute transport distances of artefactsand raw materials show few differences between the Lower

Palaeolithic and Early Middle Palaeolithic (Feblot-Augustins,1999). So while we have preliminary indications of more variedand sophisticated patterns of landscape use, planning andartefact curation, overall ranging patterns remained similar(assuming that raw material transfers are a reliable proxy for thescale of the hominid network and that dating problems are notobscuring more significant trends (cf. Feblot-Augustins, 1999)).The ubiquity of flint in the British landscape makes it difficult toassess such factors here, but the character of the assemblagesdo not contradict such notions.

Stage 7 demography and settlement history

Using the relative density of handaxes and Levallois products indifferent terrace formations as a proxy for population size,Ashton and Lewis (2002) have attempted to model thedemography of Britain during the Lower and Middle Palaeo-lithic. MIS 9/8 is seen as the last period to witness a large humanpopulation, which declined gradually or dramatically in MIS 7,and underwent a complete crash in MIS 6. Humans weresubsequently absent until MIS 3, a hiatus of ca. 120 000yrs.According to Ashton and Lewis, the demographic events of MIS8 to MIS7 relate to changing habitat preferences, away from thewarm maritime west and towards the cooler continental east,and perhaps also to an MIS 8 or 6 (i.e. later than commonlybelieved) breach of the Strait of Dover restricting unhinderedaccess to Britain for the first time (cf. papers in Preece, 1995;White and Schreve, 2000; Bates et al., 2003).

Ashton and Lewis (2002) have highlighted an intriguingpattern in the archaeological record of the Middle Thames, the




14/17

paucity of finds in the Taplow compared to earlier terracesbeing particularly marked. Reduced population size, driven bychanging habitat preference and fewer opportunities to enterBritain, is among a number of plausible explanatory mechan-isms. However, other factors could have equally contributedand exacerbated the patterns described.

A major element missing from the original formulation of thedeclining population hypothesis is changes in human beha-

viour and the way hominids organised themselves and theirtechnology in the landscape during the Early MiddlePalaeolithic. As discussed above, Levallois technology trans-lated into a highly versatile, mobile and maintainable toolkit.The products of one Levallois core could potentially take theplace of many handaxes, and the increased curation ofLevallois products would probably have led to reduced levelsof discard at andbetween sites. So, low archaeological visibilityin Britain throughout the Early Middle Palaeolithic might beexpected because of changes in technology and the waytechnology was used, rather than the number of people makingstone tools. Like is not being compared with like.

However, when one examines the sites belonging to differentphases of the Early Middle Palaeolithic, the richer sites do

appear to belong predominantly to the earlierpart of the period,especially late MIS 8 and earliest parts of MIS 7, with later MIS 7sites producing poorer assemblages (Table 2). If one believesthat site richness can be used as a proxy for population size, thiswould ostensibly support the notion of gradual depopulation.However, it is here necessary to factor in human technologicalorganisational around the changing landscapes of this longperiod, especially with regard to climatically driven adjust-ments in fluvial regimes and raw material resource availability(Table 2).

During the colder episodes, highly erosive and gravel-ladenrivers would potentially have afforded greater opportunity toexploit large reservoirs of raw materials in the form of coarse

gravels and Chalk exposed during downcutting, whereasduring the relatively quiescent interglacials and other periodsof low-energy deposition these opportunities were curtailed.So, humans may have created richer, highly visible signaturesduring the colder and early interglacial phases simply becauseraw material was more plentiful, more easily available and lessin need of sustaining. Concomitantly, as we move into the maininterglacial we find relatively fewer rich sites but more smaller,episodic sites with higher levels of curation. The precise natureof the assemblages should help here, as these sites should showmore intensively used toolkits, something that future researchwill address. Throughout the entire period, however, theycontinue to practice the same type of technology, they justexercise different planning options and use the environments in

different ways according to the prevailing conditions (cf.Nelson, 1991). This argument is supported by the evidencefrom a number of sites discussed above: for example atEbbsfleet, Crayford and West Thurrock where rich archae-ological horizons occur only as long as the targeted source ofraw material (Chalk and gravel outcrops) was available and thesites acted as extraction localities. Once these sources becameconcealed, evidence of human presence becomes restricted tojust a few pieces, although significantly they are still presentthey just leave less mess as evidence of their movement throughthe landscape. At Aveley, where a source of flint was probablynever immediate, large assemblages simply do not occur, atany point during the cycle. This is not to say that humanpopulations during MIS 7 were not quite low, just that thepreviously suggested dramatic depopulation may be partlyillusory. Indeed, if we just take the number of sites rather thanthe artefact density, then humans are equally well representedthroughout MIS 7.

A regional population crash during early MIS 6 is, however, apretty inescapable conclusion, with no known site of thisperiod thus far producing primary context archaeology. Thisstands in contrast to all previous periods, when humanpresence seems to have persisted into the cooling limb ofthe climatic cycle. If, as suggested by Bridgland (pers. comm.,2005), much of the extant Taplow gravels exploited in theMiddle Thames belongs to this final MIS 6 phase of aggradation

alone, then the chances of finding any archaeology at all in thisterrace are very slim, regardless of what was happening earlierin the cycle. This is yet another factor exaggerating the markeddecline in artefacts recovered for MIS 7. One now needs to askprecisely how and why MIS 6 differs from previous glacials,when human presence persisted longer, and why humans leftBritain at a time when their claimed preferred cooler conditionsonce more prevailed. They did not return for over 100000years.

The British evidence cannot at present reveal much abouthow Neanderthal technologies related to wider subsistencepractices. This is not due to an absence of faunal assemblages,but simply because (to our knowledge) these fossil remainshave not been systematically studied for cut marks, and in most

cases lack contextual detail. Similarly, there is only limitedevidence of what might be regarded as hunting technology.Wooden projectiles or hafts are unsurprisingly absent, althoughthe pointed morphology of a number of the Levallois products,some backed or thinned around the butt as a possible aid tohafting, may provide some scope for investigating this aspect oftechnology (Shea, 1989, 1997; Beyries, 1987). Based on theEuropean evidence Gaudzinski (1999) sees MIS 7 as a periodduring in which hunting in general becomes much clearer inthe archaeological record, with the appearance of mono-specific faunal assemblages, a fact probably linked to theaforementioned changes in technological organisation andlandscape use, with fully tooled-up Neanderthals moving

through the landscape targeting herds and individual animalswhere they were most susceptible.

Conclusion

A number of archaeological sites dated to MIS 87 andcontaining Early Middle Palaeolithic Levalloisian assemblagescan now be identified within the British Palaeolithic record.These provide a mixture of high- and low-resolution signatures,

which together permit the reconstruction of aspects of earlyNeanderthal behaviour within the British Isles, especiallyconcerning technology and its organisation in the landscape.The patterns highlighted above indicate that the Early MiddlePalaeolithic represents an intensification of Lower Palaeolithicbehavioural repertoires, showing increasingly sophisticatedcultural and social life underwritten by a major change in lithictechnology. Much is certainly missing, but the current picturecan only improve, especially as more European sites and morehigh-resolution sites become assigned to this period. Thecritical point, however, is that we now possess a Quaternaryframework that permits us to disentangle the previouslyconflated Middle Palaeolithic, separating those sites belongingto MIS 87 from those dating to the last climatic cycle. Futureopportunities must be awaited, but now that this period can beactually recognised, the work on understanding it and itssignificance in the evolution of archaic European hominids canbegin.




15/17

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank David Bridgland,Paul Pettitt and twoanonymous reviewers fortheir comments on earlierdrafts of this paper. It was partly written under the auspices of theLeverhulme Trust funded Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Pro-ject. B.S. would like to acknowledge that her work for this paper hasbeen conducted while holding an AHRC Major award.

References

Abbott WJL. 1911. On the classification of the British Stone Ageindustries and some new, little known well marked horizons andcultures. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute41: 458481.

Aldhouse-Green S. 1995. Pontnewydd Cave, Wales, a later MiddlePleistocene hominid and archaeological site: a review of stratigra-phy, dating, taphonomy and interpretation. In Human Evolution inEurope and the Atapuerca Evidence, Bermudez JM, Asuarga JL,Carbonell E (eds). Junta de Castilla y Leon;3755.

Ashton NM. 1998. The spatial distribution of the flint artefacts andhuman behaviour. In Excavations at the Lower Palaeolithic Site atEast Farm, Barnham, Suffolk 198994, Ashton NM, Lewis SG, Parfitt

S (eds). British Museum Press: London; 251258.Ashton NM. 2002. The absence of humans from Last InterglacialBritain. In Le Dernier Interglaciaire et les occupations humainesdu Paleolithique, Roebroeks W, Tuffreau A (eds). Centre dEtudeset Recherches Prehistoriques: Lille; 93103.

Ashton N, Lewis S. 2002. DesertedBritain: decliningpopulations in theBritish Late Middle Pleistocene. Antiquity76: 388396.

AshtonN, JacobiR, White M. 2003. The dating of Levallois sites in westLondon. Quaternary Newsletter 99: 2532.

Austin LA, Bergman CA, Roberts MB, Wilhelmsen KH. 1999. Archae-ology of the excavated areas. In Boxgrove: A Middle PleistoceneHominid Site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex, RobertsMB, Parfitt S (eds). English Heritage: London; 313378.

Bates MR, Keen DH, Lautridou JP. 2003. Pleistocene marine andperiglacial deposits of the English Channel. Journal of Quaternary

Science 18: 319337.Beyries S. 1987. Variabilite de lIndustrie Lithique au Mousterien:Approche Fonctionelle sur Quelques Gisements Francaises. BritishArchaeological Reports International Series 328: Oxford.

Bietti A, Grimaldi S. 1995. Levallois debitage in Central Italy: technicalachievements and raw material procurement. In The Definition andInterpretation of Levallois Technology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O.(eds). Prehistory Press: Madison; 125142.

Boeda E. 1995. Levallois: a volumetric recontruction, methods, atechnique. In The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Tech-nology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O. (eds). Prehistory Press: Madison;4168.

Boeda E, Geneste JM, Meignen L. 1990. Identification de chanesoperatoire lithiques du Paleolithique ancien et moyen. Paleo 2:4380.

Bowen DQ, Hughes SA, Sykes GA, Miller GH. 1989. Landsea cor-relations in the Pleistocene based on isoleucine epimerization innon-marine molluscs. Nature340: 4951.

Brantingham PJ, Kuhn SL. 2001. Constraints on Levallois core technol-ogy: a mathematical model. Journal of Archaeological Science 28:747761.

Bridgland DR. 1994. Quaternary of the Thames. Geological Conserva-tion Review Series. Chapman & Hall: London.

Bridgland DR. 1996. Quaternary river terrace deposits as a frameworkfor the Lower Palaeolithic record. In The English PalaeolithicReviewed, Gamble C, Lawson AJ (eds). Trust for Wessex Archae-ology: Salisbury; 2439.

Bridgland DR.2003.The evolution of theRiverMedway,SE England, inthe context of Quaternary palaeoclimate and the Palaeolithic occu-pation of NW Europe. Proceedings of the Geologists Association

114: 2348.Bridgland DR, Harding P. 1995. Lion Pit Tramway Cutting (West

Thurrock; TQ 598783). In The Quaternary of the Lower Reachesof the Thames, Field Guide, Bridgland DR, Allen P, Haggart B (eds).Quaternary Research Association: Durham; 217229.

Bridgland D, Maddy D, Bates M. 2004. River terrace sequences:templates for Quaternary geochronology and marine-terrestrial cor-relation. Journal of Quaternary Science 19: 203218.

Briggs DJ, Coope GR, Gilbertson DD. 1985. The chronology andenvironmental framework of early man in the Upper Thames Valley:a new model. British Archaeological Reports British Series 137:Oxford.

Brown JA. 1887. Palaeolithic Man in North West Middlesex.Macmillan: London.

Brown JA. 1895. Notes on the high-level River Drift between Hanwelland Iver. Proceedings of the Geologists Association 14: 153173.

Buckingham CM, Roe DA, Scott K. 1996. A preliminary report on theStanton Harcourt Channel Deposits (Oxfordshire, England): geologi-cal context, vertebrate remains and Palaeolithic stone artefacts.

Journal of Quaternary Science11: 397415.Burchell JPT. 1935. Evidence of a further glacial episode within the

valley of the Lower Thames. Geological Magazine72: 9091.Burchell JPT. 1936a. A final note on the Ebbsfleet Channel Series.

Geological Magazine73: 550554.Burchell JPT. 1936b. Hand-axes later than the Main Coombe Rock of

the Lower Thames valley. Antiquaries Journal 16: 260264.Burchell JPT. 1957. A temperate bed of the last interglacial period at

Northfleet, Kent. Geological Magazine94: 212214.Callow P. 1976. The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Britain and

adjacent areas of Europe. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.Chandler RH. 1914. The Pleistocene deposits of Crayford. Proceedings

of Geologists Association 25: 6171.Chandler RH. 1916. The implements and cores of Crayford. Proceed-

ings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia 2: 240248.Collins D. 1978. Early Man in West Middlesex: the Yiewsley Palaeo-

lithic Sites. HSMO: London.Coulson SD. 1990. Middle Palaeolithic Industries of Great Britain.

Studies in Modern Archaeology, vol 4. Holos: Bonn.Cruse J. 1987. Further investigations of the Acheulian Site at Cuxton.

Archaeologia Cantiana 104: 3981.Currant A. 1986. Manand theQuaternary interglacialfaunas of Britain.

In The Palaeolithic of Britain and its Nearest Neighbours: RecentTrends, Collcutt SN (ed.). University of Sheffield: Sheffield; 5052.

Currant A, Jacobi R. 2002. Human presence and absence in Britain

during the early part of the Late Pleistocene. In Le Dernier Inter-glaciaire et les occupations humaines du Paleolithique, RoebroeksW, Tuffreau A (eds). Centre dEtudes et Recherches Prehistoriques:Lille; 105113.

Debono H, Goran-Inbar N. 2001. Note on a link between Acheuleanhandaxes and the Levallois method. Journal of the Israel PrehistoricSociety31: 923.

DErrico F. 2003.The invisiblefrontier. A multiplespeciesmodel fortheorigin of behavioural modernity. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:188202.

Dibble H. 1995. Biache-Saint-Vaast, Level IIa: a comparison ofapproaches. In The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Tech-nology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O. (eds). Prehistory Press: Madison;93116.

Evans Sir J. 1897. Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments

of Great Britain, 2nd edn. Longmans: London.

Feblot-Augustins J. 1999. Raw material transport patterns and settle-ment systems in the European Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: con-tinuity, change and variability. In The Middle PalaeolithicOccupation of Europe, Roebroeks W, Gamble C (eds). Universityof Leiden: Leiden; 193214.

Foley R, Lahr MM. 1997. Mode 3 technologies and the evolution ofmodern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal7: 336.

Gamble C. 1999. The Palaeolithic Societies of Europe. CambridgeUniversity: Cambridge Press.

Gaudzinski S. 1999. The faunal record of the Lower and MiddlePalaeolithic of Europe: Remarks on human interference. In TheMiddle Palaeolithic Occupation of Europe, Roebroeks W, GambleC (eds). University of Leiden: Leiden; 215233.

Geneste JM. 1985. Analyse lithique des industries Mousteriennes duPerigord: une approche technologique du comportement des groupsau Paleolithique moyen. Thesis, Universite de Bordeaux.

Gibbard PL. 1985. The Pleistocene History of the Middle Thames.Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.




16/17

Gibbard PL. 1994. The Pleistocene History of the Lower Thames Valley.Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Goren-Inbar N, Belfer-Cohen A. 1998. Thetechnological abilities of theLevantine Mousterians: cultural and mental capacities. InNeanderthals and Modern Humans in Western Asia, Akazawa T,Aoki K, Bar-Yosef O (eds). Plenum Press: New York; 205221.

Green HS. 1984. Pontnewydd Cave; A Lower Palaeolithic Hominid Sitein Wales. National Museum of Wales: Cardiff.

Henshilwood CS, Marean CW. 2003. The origin of modern human

behaviour: critique of the models and their test implications. CurrentAnthropology 44: 627651.

Hosfield R. 2005. Individuals among palimpsest data: fluvial land-scapes in Southern England. In The Hominid Individual in Context:Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle PalaeolithicLandscapes, Locales and Artefacts, Gamble C, Porr M (eds). Routle-dge: London; 220243.

Hosfield R, Chambers JC. 2002. The Lower Palaeolithic site of Broom:geoarchaeological implications of optical dating. Lithics 23: 3342.

Jaubert J, Farizy C. 1995. Levallois debitage: exclusivity, absence orcoexistence with other operative schemes in the Garonne, Basin,Southwestern France. In The Definition and Interpretation of Leval-lois Technology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O. (eds). Prehistory Press:Madison; 227248.

Keeley LH. 1980. Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses.University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Keen DH. 1990. Significance of the record provided by Pleistocenefluvial deposits and their included molluscan faunas for palaeo-environmental reconstruction and stratigraphy: a case study fromthe English Midlands. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimate, Palaeoecol-ogy80: 2534.

Keen DH. 1995. Raised beaches and sea-levels in the English Channelin the Middle and Late Pleistocene: problems of interpretation andimplications for the isolation of the British Isles. In Island Britain: AQuaternary Perspective, Preece RC (ed.). Geological Society SpecialPublication 96: London; 6374.

Kemp RA. 1995. The Middle and Upper Loam at Northfleet. In TheQuaternary of the Lower Reaches of the Thames, Field Guide,Bridgland DR, Allen P, Haggart B (eds). Quaternary Research Associ-

ation: Durham; 165166.Kennard AS. 1944. The Crayford Brickearths. Proceedings of Geol-

ogists Association 55: 121169.Kerney MP, Sieveking G de G. 1977. Northfleet. In South East England

and the Thames Valley. Guide Book for Excursion A5, X INQUACongress,Birmingham, Shepherd-Thorne ER, Wymer JJ (eds). Geoab-stracts: Norwich; 4446.

Kolen J, De Loecker D, GroenendijkAJ, de WarrimontJP. 1999.MiddlePalaeolithic surface scatters: how informative? A case study fromsouthern Limburg (the Netherlands). In The Middle PalaeolithicOccupation of Europe, Roebroeks W, Gamble C (eds). Universityof Leiden: Leiden; 177192.

Lacaille AD, Oakley KP. 1936. The Palaeolithic sequence at Iver,Bucks, with an appendix on the geology. The Antiquaries Journal16: 421443.

Layard NF. 1912. Animal remains from the railway cutting at Ipswich.Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and NaturalHistory14: 5968.

Layard NF. 1920. The Stoke Bone-Bed, Ipswich. Proceedings of thePrehistoric Society of East Anglia 3: 210219.

MacraeRJ. 1990.New finds andold problems in theLower Palaeolithicof the Upper Thames valley. Lithics11: 315.

Macrae RJ. 1991. New Lower Palaeolithic finds from gravel pits incentral southern England. Lithics12: 1220.

McBrearty S. 2001. The Middle Pleistocene of East Africa. In HumanRoots: Africa and Asia in the Middle Pleistocene, Barham L, Robson-Brown K (eds). WASP: Bristol; 8198.

McBrearty S, Brooks S. 2000. The revolution that wasnt: a newinterpretation of the origin of modern human behaviour. Journalof Human Evolution 39: 453565.

Mitchell JC. 1995. Studying biface utilisation at Boxgrove: roe deerbutchery with replica handaxes. Lithics16: 6469.

Moir JR, Hopwood AT. 1939. Excavations at Brundon, Suffolk (193537). Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society5: 132.

Moncel M-H, Combier J. 1992. Loutillage sur eclat dans lindustrielithique du site Pleistocene moyen DOrgnac 3 (Ardeche, France).LAnthropologie96: 548.

Nelson M. 1991. The study of technological organisation. Archaeolo-gical Method and Theory 3: 57100.

Newcomer MH. 1984. Flaking experiments with Pontnewydd rawmaterials. In Pontnewydd Cave: A Lower Palaeolithic Hominid Sitein Wales: the First Report, Green HS (ed.). National Museum ofWales: Cardiff; 153158.

Parfitt S. 1998.Pleistocenevertebrate faunasof theWest SussexCoastalPlain: their environment and palaeoenvironmental significance. InThe Quaternary of Kent & Sussex: Field Guide, MurtonJB, WhitemanCA, Bates MR, Bridgland D, Long AJ, Roberts MB, Waller MP (eds).Quaternary Research Association: London; 121135.

Plisson H, Beryies S. 1998. Pointes ou outils triangulaires? Donneesfonctionnelles dans le Mousterien Levantin. Paleorient24: 516.

Pope M. 2002. The significance of biface-rich assemblages: an exam-ination of behavioural controls on lithic assemblage formation in theLower Palaeolithic. PhD thesis, University of Southampton.

Pope M, Roberts MB. 2005. Observations between the relationshipbetween Palaeolithic individuals and artefact scatters at the MiddlePleistocene site of Boxgrove, UK. In The Hominid Individual inContext: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeo-lithic Landscapes, Locales and Artefacts, Gamble C, Porr M (eds).

Routledge: London; 8197.Preece RC (ed.). 1995. Island Britain: a Quaternary perspective. Geo-

logical Society Special Publication 96: London.Roberts MB, Parfitt SA (eds). 1999. Boxgrove; A Middle Palaeolithic

Pleistocene Hominid Site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex.English Heritage: London.

Roe DA. 1968. A Gazetteer of British Lower and Middle PalaeolithicSites. Council for British Archaeology, Research Report no. 8:London.

Roe DA. 1981. The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Periods in Britain.Routledge & Kegan Paul: London.

Roebroeks W, Kolen J, Rensink E. 1988. Planning depth, anticipationand the organisation of Middle Palaeolithic technology: the ArchaicNatives meet Eves descendants. Helinium 28: 1734.

Roebroeks W, de Loecker D, Hennekens P, Van Ieperen I. 1992. A veil

of stones: on the interpretation of an early Middle Palaeolithic lowdensity scatter at Maastricht-Belvedere (The Netherlands). AnalectaPraehistorica Leidensia 25: 116.

Rolland N. 1995. Levallois technique emergence: single or multiple? Areview of the Euro-African record. In The Definition and Interpret-ation of Levallois Technology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O (eds). Pre-history Press: Madison; 333359.

Ronen A (ed.). 1982. The Transition from the Lower to Middle Palaeo-lithicand theOrigins of ModernMan. British Archaeological ReportsInternational Series 151: Oxford.

Schlanger N. 1996. Understanding Levallois: lithic technology andcognitive archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6: 231254.

Schreve DC. 1997. Mammalian biostratigraphy of the later MiddlePleistocene in Britain. PhD thesis, University of London.

Schreve DC. 2001a. Differentiation of the British late Middle Pleisto-cene interglacials: the evidence from mammalian biostratigraphy.Quaternary Science Reviews 20: 16931705.

Schreve DC. 2001b. Mammalian evidence from Middle Pleistocenefluvial sequences for complex environmental change at the oxygenisotope substage level. Quaternary International 79: 6574.

Schreve DC, Bridgland DR, Allen P, Blackford JJ, Gleed-Owen CP,Griffiths HI, Keen DH, White MJ. 2002. Sedimentology, palaeontol-ogy and archaeology of late Middle Pleistocene River Thames terracedeposits at Purfleet, Essex, UK. Quaternary Science Reviews 21:14231464.

Schreve DC, Harding P, White MJ, Bridgland DR, Allen P, Clayton F,Keen DH. in press. A Levallois knapping site at West Thurrock, LowerThames, UK: its Quaternary context, environment and age. Proceed-ings of the Prehistoric Society.

Scott K, Buckingham CM. 2001. A river runs through it: a decade ofresearch at Stanton Harcourt. In A Very Remote Period Indeed:Papers on the Palaeolithic Presented to Derek Roe, Milliken S, CookJ (eds). Oxbow: Oxford; 207213.




17/17

Shea J. 1989. A functional study of the lithic industries associated withhominid fossils in the Kebara and Qafzeh Caves, Israel. In TheHuman Revolution: Behavioural and Biological Perspectives in theOrigin of Modern Humans, Mellars P, Stringer C (eds). EdinburghUniversity Press: Edinburgh; 611625.

Shea J. 1997. Middle Palaeolithic spear point technology. In ProjectileTechnology, Knecht H (ed.). Plenum Press: New York; 79106.

Smith RA. 1911. A Palaeolithic industry at Northfleet, Kent. Archae-ologia 62: 515532.

Soressi M, Hays MA. 2003. Manufacture, transport and use of Mous-terian bifaces: a case study from the Perigord (France). In MultipleApproaches to the Study of Bifacial Technologies, Soressi M, DibbleH (eds). University of Pennsylvania Museum Press: Philadelphia;125148.

Sparks BW, West RG. 1963. The interglacial deposits at Stutton, Suffolk.Proceedings of the Geologists Association 74: 419432.

Spencer HEP. 1958. Mammalia of the Stutton Brickearth. Transactionsof the Suffolk Naturalists Society 10: 242.

Spencer HEP. 1962. Prehistoric animal remains at Harkstead. Trans-actions of the Suffolk Naturalists Society 12: 5960.

Spencer HEP. 1970. A contribution to the geological history of Suffolk:Part 4: The interglacial epochs. Transactions of the Suffolk NaturalistsSociety15: 148196.

Spurrell FCJ. 1880a. On the discovery of the place where Palaeolithic

implements were made at Crayford. Quarterly Journal of the Geo-logical Society of London 36: 544548.

Spurrell FCJ. 1880b. On implements and chips from the floor of aPalaeolithic workshop. Archaeological Journal38: 294299.

Spurrell FCJ. 1884. On some Palaeolithic knapping tools and modes ofusing them. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britainand Ireland 13: 109118.

Stringer C. 2002. Modern human originsprogress and prospects.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B357:563579.

Stringer C, Hublin J-J. 1999. New age estimates for the Swanscombehominid, and their significance for human evolution. Journal ofHuman Evolution 37: 873877.

Stuart AJ. 1982. Pleistocene Vertebrates in the British Isles. Longman:London.

Sutcliffe AJ. 1995. Insularity of the British Isles 25000030000 yearsago: the mammalian, includinghuman, evidence. In Island Britain: AQuaternary Perspective, Preece RC (ed.). Geological Society SpecialPublication 96: London; 127140.

Szabo BJ, Collins D. 1975. Ages of fossil bones from British interglacialsites. Nature 254: 680681.

Tester PJ. 1950. Palaeolithic flint implements from the Bowmans LodgeGravel Pit, Dartford Heath. Archaeologia Cantiana 63: 122134.

Tester PJ. 1965. An Acheulian Site at Cuxton. Archaeologia Cantiana80: 3060.

Texier P-J, Francisco-Ortega I. 1995. Main technological and typolo-gical characteristics of thelithic assemblage from Level1 at Berigoule(Murs-Vaucluse). In The Definition and Interpretation of LevalloisTechnology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O (eds). Prehistory Press: Madi-son; 213226.

Tuffreau A. 1995. The variability of Levallois technology in northernFrance and neighbouring areas. In The Definition and Interpretationof Levallois Technology, Dibble HL, Bar-Yosef O (eds). PrehistoryPress: Madison; 413427.

Tuffreau A, Lamotte A, Marcy J-L. 1997. Land-use and site function inAcheulean complexes of the Somme Valley. World Archaeology29:225241.

Turq A. 1988. Le Paleolithique inferieur et moyen en Haute-Argenais:etat des recherches. Revue de lArgenais 115: 83112.

Turq A. 1989. Exploitation des matieres premieres lithiques et occu-pation du sol: lexample du Mousterien entre Dordogne et Lot. InVariation des Paleomilieux et Peuplement Prehistorique, Laville H(ed.). CNRS: Paris; 179204.

Turq A. 2000. Paleolithique Inferieur et Moyen entre Dordogne et Lot.Paleo, Supplement 2.

Warren SH. 1923a. The Elephas-antiquus bed of Clacton-on-Sea (Essex)and its flora andfauna. QuarterlyJournal of the Geological Society ofLondon 79: 606636.

WarrenSH. 1923b. Thesub-soil flint flaking sites at Grays.Proceedingsof the Geologists Association 34: 3842.

Wenban-Smith FF. 1995. The Ebbsfleet Valley, Northfleet (BakersHole). In The Quaternary of the Lower Reaches of the Thames: FieldGuide, Bridgland DR, Allen P, Haggart BA (eds). QuaternaryResearch Association: Durham; 147164.

West RG. 1977. East Anglia. X INQUA Congress Excursion Guide. GeoAbstracts: Norwich.

West RG, Sparks BW. 1960. Coastal interglacial deposits of the EnglishChannel. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of LondonB243: 95133.

Whitaker W. 1885. The Geology of the Country around Ipswich,Hadleigh and Felixstowe. Memoirs of the Geological Survey.

White MJ, Ashton NM. 2003. Lower Palaeolithic core technology andthe origins of the Levallois method in NW Europe. Current Anthro-pology 44: 598609.

White MJ, Bridgland DR, Ashton NM, McNabb J, Berger MA. 1995.Wansunt Pit, Dartford Heath (TQ 513737). In The Quaternary of theLower Reaches of the Thames, Field Guide, Bridgland DR, Allen P,Haggart BA (eds). Quaternary Research Association: Durham; 117127.

White MJ, Jacobi RM. 2002. Two sides to every story: Bout Coupehandaxes revisited. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21: 109133.

White MJ, Pettitt PB. 1995. Technology of Early Palaeolithic WesternEurope: innovation, variability and a unified framework. Lithics16:2740.

White MJ, Schreve DC. 2000. Island BritainPeninsula Britain: palaeo-geography, colonization, and the Lower Palaeolithic settlement ofthe British Isles. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66: 128.

Wymer JJ. 1968. Lower Palaeolithic Archaeology in Britain asRepresented by the Thames Valley. John Baker: London.

Wymer JJ. 1985. Palaeolithic Sites of East Anglia. Geobooks: Norwich.Wymer JJ. 1988. Palaeolithic archaeology and the British Quaternary

sequence. Quaternary Science Reviews 7: 7998.Wymer JJ. 1999. The Lower PalaeolithicOccupation of Britain. Trust for

Wessex Archaeology: Salisbury.

Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons Ltd J Quaternary Sci Vol 21(5) 525 541 (2006)


Documents

Mp Britanija