An enhanced record of MIS 9 environments, geochronology and geoarchaeology: data from construction of the High Speed 1 (London–Channel Tunnel) rail-link and other recent investigations at Purfleet, Essex, UK

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract: New data from the complex Lower Thames locality at Purfleet, Essex, reinforce the correlation of interglacial deposits there with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9, the second of four postAnglian (MIS 12) interglacials recorded in the river terrace sequence east of London. Arising from various developer-funded archaeologically-driven projects, and primarily the construction of 'High Speed 1' (HS1: formerly the Channel Tunnel Rail Link), the new evidence includes additions to palaeontological knowledge of this interglacial, notably from ostracods and vertebrates, results from isotopic analyses of shell and concretionary carbonates, and the first application of numerical geochronological techniques at Purfleet. These analyses, combined with mutual climatic modelling of the ostracods, confirm that deposition of the fossilferous deposits coincided with interglacial conditions, with similar-to-or warmer-than-present summer temperatures and colder winters, providing a suggestion of greater continentality. OSL and amino-acid racemisation support correlation of the interglacial with MIS 9, whereas the climatic and sedimentological evidence points to correlation with the earliest and warmest substage (MIS 9e). There is also evidence that a greater part of the Purfleet sequence might date from the interglacial, although whether these also represent MIS 9e or later parts of the complex stage cannot be determined. The additional archaeological material is consistent with previous interpretations of a tripartite stratigraphical sequence of lithic traditions: basal Clactonian, above which is Acheulian (handaxe manufacture), followed by one of the earliest British appearances of Levallois technique. ABSTRACTNew data from the complex Lower Thames locality at Purfleet, Essex, reinforce the correlation of interglacial deposits there with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9, the second of four post-Anglian (MIS 12) interglacials recorded in the river terrace sequence east of London. Arising from various developer-funded archaeologically-driven projects, and primarily the construction of 'High Speed 1' (HS1: formerly the Channel Tunnel Rail Link), the new evidence includes additions to palaeontological knowledge of this interglacial, notably from ostracods and vertebrates, results from isotopic analyses of shell and concretionary carbonates, and the first application of geochronological techniques at Purfleet. These analyses, combined with palaeotemperature estimates from the Mutual Ostracod Temperate Range...

An aminostratigraphy for the British Quaternary based on Bithynia opercula

“…No British site spans the entire period but a number of sites have useful records from this stage. Purfleet is perhaps the most informative site of this age in the Lower Thames valley and has been the site of a number of recent excavations (Schreve et al., 2002; Bridgland et al., 2012). As discussed elsewhere, this site can be tied in to the terrace stratigraphy, and has informative biostratigraphy and archaeology.…”

Fluvial archives as a framework for the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: patterns of British artefact distribution and potential chronological implications

“…It now seems that assemblages with significant proportions of cleavers and 'ficron' handaxes occur preferentially, in British sequences, in deposits formed at around the time of the MIS 9 interglacial (Wenban--Smith 2006;Pettitt & White 2012). Interglacial conditions were restricted in that marine isotope stage to a short--lived but very warm episode of no more that 4000 years, which coincides with substage 9e (Siddall et al 2003;Bridgland et al 2012). As ever, both types occur throughout the Lower Palaeolithic but are far more prevalent during this one short episode.…”

“…2), heralding the transition to Mode 3, is well established as an age marker, having been flagged as such by Wymer (1988Wymer ( , 1999 and pinned down to the beginning of MIS 8 (Moncel & Combier 1992;Bridgland 1994Bridgland , 2006Rolland 1995; or, in more recent reviews, somewhat earlier, within MIS 9 Bridgland et al 2012). Westaway et al (2006) regarded the first appearance of Levallois as the most significant of the archaeological age indicators that they used for modelling terrace incision by the Solent River (see above); having taken it to have occurred at the MIS 9-8 transition, they found from their modelling that there was a better fit with the various data if Levallois had first appeared in MIS 9b.…”

Spatially-resolved thermoluminescence from snail opercula using an EMCCD

“…That experiment was designed to evaluate the performance of the EMCCD system and the data manipulation and analysis software. The same measurement and analytical procedure was then applied to an operculum that retained the signal that it had acquired during burial at the site of Purfleet, Essex, UK which is thought to date to~315 ka (Bridgland et al, 2013) and would therefore be expected to have absorbed a dose of~290 Gy since burial.…”