This paper summarizes the results of recent research on the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Channel Islands and focuses on the integration of new information into the long-running efforts to explain the processes by which the Neolithic became established in Guernsey and the other Channel Islands. This research builds on Kinnes's work on the complex monument at Les Fouaillages, Guernsey in the early 1980s and the review by Patton of Neolithic communities in the Channel Islands in 1995. Many rescue and research excavations in Guernsey have provided new evidence which informs the complex relationships between Guernsey, the other Channel Islands and the north-west of France at the time of the Mesolithic and EarlyNeolithic. Analysis of the data takes into account recent French research (and in particular Cassen et al. 2000 and Guyodo and Hamon 2005). Also, at the time of writing, Kinnes's work on Les Fouaillages is being prepared for publication (Kinnes et al. forthcoming, see below). The developments are discussed against new and existing data for rising sea levels and the consequent isolation of Guernsey as an island.introduction Research over the past ten years both in France (Ghesquière et al. led to significant advances in establishing the presence of Mesolithic peoples, and knowledge of their possible way of life, related to the exploitation of an extensive coastline that then existed below present-day sea level (Renouf and Urry 1976; Patton 1993;Bukach 2004; Guyodo and Hamon 2005). These discoveries have provided a substantial data set for the creation of new hypotheses and have aided the confirmation of some older suppositions. This reappraisal has been greatly enhanced by the recent work of Jean-Noël Guyodo and Gwénaëlle Hamon (2005) following visits to Guernsey. The archaeological evidence is presented first and then put in context both in terms of geology and rising sea levels.

Compilation of the offshore and onshore altitudinal limits of the loess deposits of western France and southern England shows that they were deposited by low-level wind fields. These relate to (i) the deflation of silt-rich sediment extracted from the outwash plains of the not far distant British-Irish Ice Sheet and from the palaeo-rivers of the Channel, and (ii) the existence of north and north-western palaeo-winds deduced from particle size analysis and heavy mineral distribution, and suggest (iii) that loess particles were transported by strong katabatic winds blowing from the northern ice-covered regions towards Brittany and Normandy. Comparison between the main orientation of Neanderthal shelters and the direction of the katabatic winds shows that they were perpendicular to each other. The dominant orientation of the shelters was apparently ruled by these winds. A small-scale study concentrating on the penultimate glaciation shows that in contrast to Brittany and Normandy where loess deposits accumulated on northfacing cliffs, in England the same particles were deposited on the leeside of the hills. The existence of deflation zones, violently swept by Marine Isotope Stage 6 katabatic winds south of the British-Irish ice sheet, was probably at the origin of the restricted number of Neanderthals at that time in England.

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1993. Sea-cave temperature measurements and amino acid geochronology of British Late Pleistocene sea stands, /ourna/ of ABSTRACT: 'Calibrating' amino acid ratios with uranium-series dates requires an accurate knowledge of current mean annual temperatures (CMATs) over the region studied. To measure these, test-tube sized 'diffusion sensors' were emplaced for 1 year (in 1984, 1985 and 1986), both outside and inside Minchin Hole sea-cave in South Wales and Belle Hougue sea-cave in Jersey, both of which have yielded Oxygen Isotope Substage 5e uranium-series ages on speleothems. Our outside temperatures agreed with meteorological ones. Our inside temperatures were over 1°C lower. To allow for this, a mean of 'empirical', 'linear' and 'parabolic' epimerisation lournal of Quaternary Science calculations suggests that ratios from molluscs inside the caves should be multiplied by over 1.1 for comparison with outside ratios. This raises Bowen et al.'s 'Pennard' stage ratios from inside Minchin (and Bacon) Hole up towards the 'Unnamed' stage ratios outside, and suggests that the Unnamed sites are also from Oxygen Isotope Substage 5e, as proposed by Proctor and Smart. The same conclusioil is reached more strongly by comparisons with the ratios and temperatures inside Belle Hougue to the south, and at Eemian (assumed 5e) sites in The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark to the east. The Pennard ratios from outside sites may provide further evidence for global sea stands close to the present level later in Oxygen Isotope Stage 5.