Mark J. White

Sedimentology, palaeontology and archaeology of late Middle Pleistocene River Thames terrace deposits at Purfleet, Essex, UK

Middle Pleistocene fluvial deposits of the Corbets Tey Formation at Purfleet, Essex, provide evidence of an un-named and previously poorly recognized interglacial, thought to corrrelate with Oxygen Isotope Stage (OIS) 9. Previous attributions of the sediments to the Ipswichian (Last Interglacial) Stage are refuted. New investigations have yielded rich molluscan, mammalian and ostracod assemblages that indicate fully temperate conditions and the distal influence of marine transgression. Pollen analyses suggest a previously unrecorded phase of interglacial vegetational development. Clast composition, geomorphological evidence and the occurrence of molluscs that favour large rivers all point to deposition by the Thames, rather than in a minor tributary, as suggested previously. Three separate Palaeolithic industries in stratigraphical superposition are recognized at Purfleet, these being Clactonian, Acheulean and Levallois. Purfleet is therefore a key locality in the understanding of the early human occupation and exploitation of southern Britain, as well as for the interpretation and correlation of the terrace sequence in the Thames Valley.

Island Britain – Peninsula Britain: Palaeogeography, Colonisation, and the Lower Palaeolithic Settlement of the British Isles.

Britains geographical status has fluctuated between an island and a peninsula of Europe several times over the past 500 kya, as sea-levels rose and fell in response to global climate change. In this paper, we outline the currently available lithological and biological evidence for these fluctuations and use it to help construct an heuristic biogeographical framework of human colonisation, settlement, and abandonment, proposing mechanisms that are coupled with both regional palaeogeographical evolution and global climatic change. When used as a means of interpreting the archaeological record, the implications of this framework suggests not only that large-scale socio-culturally relevant patterns may indeed exist in the lithic record, but that these may possibly be understood as part of the ebb and flow of different regional populations, measured against the backdrop of changing climates and landscapes. It is suggested that the Clactonian and Acheulean may represent separate pulses of colonisation, possibly by different European populations, following abandonment during the height of glacial periods: the Clactonian reflecting an early recolonisation event during climatic amelioration, the Acheulean representing a second wave during the main interglacial. This phenomenon is recurrent, being observable during the first two post-Anglian inter glacials. Other patterns in the lithic record are argued to reflect specific endemic technological developments among insular hominid populations during periods of isolation from mainland Europe. These represent some of the few patterns in the British Acheulean that cannot be interpreted more parsimoniously in terms of raw materials.

The Clactonian Question: On the Interpretation of Core-and-Flake Assemblages in the British Lower Paleolithic

In recent years, the nature, significance, and validity of the British core-and-flake assemblage known as the Clactonian have come under close scrutiny. More traditional ideas, which see the Clactonian as the product of a distinct, non-handax-making technical tradition, are being challenged by notions of a single European knapping repertoire in which the proportion of handaxes varies according to factors such as activity facies, local raw material potential, and landscape use. Furthermore, recent technological studies which show a basic technological parity between the Acheulean and the Clactonian, including claims for rare atypical bifaces within the Clactonian, have been argued as eroding the very rationale for seeing the Clactonian as a separate entity. These challenges have gained widespread acceptance, despite a lack of empirical support in some cases, questionable conclusions, and hints of a widely ignored, yet intriguing chronological recurrence. A review of the empirical basis and interpretation of the Clactonian, in both recent years and the recent past, suggests that the Clactonian is in danger of being explained away, rather than explained.

Two sides to every story: Bout coupé handaxes revisited

Bout coupe handaxes are widely considered to be a cultural and typological marker for the Middle Palaeolithic in Britain, and are traditionally dated to around the end of the Last Interglacial or the beginning of the Devensian glaciation. Much debate has surrounded the typological validity of this form, but relatively little attention has been paid to the stratigraphical integrity of the sample. This paper takes a fresh look at the bout coupe problem using a select sample of better provenanced pieces and employs the most current chronological frameworks. We conclude that there is a temporally restricted bout coupe phenomenon in the British Isles, but contrary to previous claims these handaxes cannot be regarded as an unequivocal marker for the Mousterian and nor do they belong to the early Upper Pleistocene. Rather the bout coupe phenomenon marks the recolonization of Britain by Neanderthal populations during OIS 3 (59–41 ka). This further suggests a bipartite division of the British Middle Palaeolithic, each period having a quasi-distinctive lithic signature.

Things to do in Doggerland when you're dead: surviving OIS3 at the northwestern-most fringe of Middle Palaeolithic Europe

Abstract This paper examines Neanderthal survival skills in Britain. Its starting point is that there are major tensions between the three main sources of relevant information – archaeological, palaeoanthropological and palaeoenvironmental data and their subsequent interpretation – that make our understanding of Neanderthal survival much more precarious than is generally supposed. The paper is speculative, and proffers questions not answers. It challenges us to look past the often mute material record, and to equip Neanderthals with a number of logically prerequisite but generally archaeologically invisible survival tools and practices, beyond the well-trodden paths of mobility, hunting and planning.

Technology and landscape use in the Early Middle Palaeolithic of the Thames Valley.

Abstract This chapter re-examines key assemblages from the Thames Valley which can confidently be assigned to the early Middle Palaeolithic (Marine Isotope Stages 8–6). The assemblages are characterised in terms of human activity at each place, in order to understand patterns of adaptation, technological practice, demography and landscape use in different parts of the Thames catchment. Contrasts are apparent between the Middle and Lower Thames in terms of available raw material and site location, technological strategies and curation practices, which require consideration when constructing demographic models for Britain during this period.

CAVE MEN: STONE TOOLS, VICTORIAN SCIENCE, AND THE 'PRIMITIVE MIND' OF DEEP TIME

Palaeoanthropology, the study of the evolution of humanity, arose in the nineteenth century. Excavations in Europe uncovered a series of archaeological sediments which provided proof that the antiquity of human life on Earth was far longer than the biblical six thousand years, and by the 1880s authors had constructed a basic paradigm of what ‘primitive’ human life was like. Here we examine the development of Victorian palaeoanthropology for what it reveals of the development of notions of cognitive evolution. It seems that Victorian specialists rarely addressed cognitive evolution explicitly, although several assumptions were generally made that arose from preconceptions derived from contemporary ‘primitive’ peoples. We identify three main phases of development of notions of the primitive mind in the period.

The demonstration of human antiquity : three rediscovered illustrations from the 1825 and 1846 excavations in Kent's Cavern (Torquay, England).

The authors disentangle the fascinating tale of the investigations in Kents Cavern, iconic site for the acceptance of early man. The drawings they have discovered in the archives of the Geological Society are the only ones known from the earliest excavations and they are published here for the first time. As this paper shows, it takes intellectual courage to be an archaeologist. Whatever the enormity of his challenge to contemporary religion, I like to think that MacEnery would have been fairly supported by Antiquitys reviewing system. But perhaps our doctrinal challenges are lesser ones.…

The earlier Palaeolithic occupation of the Chilterns (southern England): re-assessing the sites of Worthington G. Smith

Boxgrove in Sussex has been in the headlines for its human bone (‘the first Englishman’); more to the research point is its superb in-place deposits of debris from handaxe-knapping. This is a timely moment to look once again at the reports of Worthington G. Smith, who a century ago recognized, amongst the scores of sites with river-rolled handaxes, rare deposits of a more informative character.

John Lubbock, caves, and the development of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic archaeology

John Lubbocks Pre-Historic Times (1865) was the first publication to use the terms ‘Palaeolithic’ and ‘Neolithic’ to define major periods of early prehistory. Because of this he has come to be seen as one of the most influential figures in the history of prehistoric archaeology. We examine this image here, in terms of his influence on contemporaries both in Britain and in France, where early excavations were providing materials that came to form the basic periodization of the Palaeolithic that is still in use today. We show how Lubbock contributed to this emergence of a professional Palaeolithic archaeology, and what he did and did not achieve in the critical decades of the 1850s and 1860s before his interests moved elsewhere.