Excavation of the Lower Palaeolithic Site at Amey's Eartham Pit, Boxgrove, West Sussex: A Preliminary Report.

Abstract

The acheulian site at Boxgrove contains one of the most extensive areas of in situ fauna and flintwork yet discovered in Britain. This material is found in a complex sequence of sediments which represent depositional conditions from a 42 m sea level rise to the onset of a full periglacial climate. Excavation of the archaeological horizon has been accompanied by a programme of multidisciplinary research examining site formation processes, palaeolandscape and palaeoecological development, using sedimentological and environmental reconstruction techniques. Dating of the site is tentative as no absolute dates are available at present. However, comparative analysis with other British sites would suggest a position for the Boxgrove sequence within the Middle Pleistocene. The archaeological horizon is interpreted as being deposited towards the latter part of an interglacial or an interstadial period.

Late Middle Pleistocene deposits at Norton Farm on the West Sussex coastal plain, southern England

“…Fowler (1932) recognised that at least two, altitudinally (and, by implication, chronologically) discrete beaches were present in the area. An upper series of sands and gravels at heights above 30 m (100 ft) OD (Ordnance Datum) were identified on the Upper Coastal Plain that were comparable with the sequences reported by Prestwich from Waterbeach and, more recently, those discovered at Amey's Eartham Pit, Boxgrove (Roberts, 1986(Roberts, , 1990Roberts et al, 1994;Roberts and Parfitt, 1999). These often have been referred to collectively as the Goodwood-Slindon or '100 foot' Raised Beach (Bates et al, 1997).…”

“…These sands appear to be superficially similar to the Slindon Sands underlying parts of the higher coastal plain, e.g. at Amey's Eartham Pit, Boxgrove (Roberts, 1986), where they are of marine origin.…”

“…Conventionally a Hoxnian age was ascribed to the highest 30 m raised beach (Shephard-Thorn & Kellaway, 1978), whereas the lower beach was correlated with the Ipswichian Stage (West and Sparks, 1960;Hodgson, 1964). The recent excavations at Amey's Eartham Pit, Boxgrove, however, have suggested an age late within the Cromerian Complex for the raised beach that occurs between 30 m and 43 m OD (Roberts, 1986(Roberts, , 1990Roberts et al, 1994; but see Bowen and Sykes, 1994;Bates, 1996).…”

“…Attention has been focused recently on sediments from the Upper Coastal Plain, because of the wealth of Lower Palaeolithic material that these sediments have furnished. At Boxgrove, for example, Lower Palaeolithic artefacts were found not only in fossiliferous terrestrial sediments above the marine deposits, that occur between 40 and 42 m OD, but also within the raised beach itself (Roberts, 1986;Roberts and Parfitt, 1999). Boxgrove is the most famous site in the Upper Coastal Plain, but extensive quarrying has been yielding archaeological and associated faunal material for many years at other sites along its length, from Slindon in the east to Portsdown in the west (Wessex Archaeology, 1994).…”

A brief review of the archaeological evidence for Palaeolithic and Neolithic subsistence

“…For example, the remarkably well-preserved site of Boxgrove in Southern England, ca 500 000 years old, has a large number of Acheulian hand axes and associated faunal remains (eg rhinoceros and horse) that have cut marks on them, which are sings of being purposefully butchered by hominids (Roberts, 1986;Pitts & Roberts, 1997). There are also other sites with remarkable preservation from the time period 500 000 -300 000, such as Miesenheim and Bilzingsleben, Germany, and at Hoxne and Swanscombe, England (Gamble, 1999).…”