On the earliest Acheulean in Britain: first dates and in-situ artefacts from the MIS 15 site of Fordwich (Kent, UK)

Abstract

Northern Europe experienced cycles of hominin habitation and absence during the Middle Pleistocene. Fluvial gravel terrace sites in the east of Britain and north of France provide a majority of the data contributing to this understanding, mostly through the presence or absence of stone-tool artefacts. To date, however, relatively few sites have been radiometrically dated, and many have not been excavated in modern times, leading to an over-reliance on selectively sampled and poorly dated lithic assemblages. This includes Fordwich (Kent, UK), where over 330 bifaces were discovered through industrial quarrying in the 1920s. Here, we present the first excavation and dating of artefacts discovered in situ at Fordwich, alongside their technological analysis and relationship to those previously recovered. The site is demonstrated to retain deposits of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts, with 251 flakes, scrapers and cores identified to date. Infrared-radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating of feldspar reveals 112 artefacts to have come from levels dating to at least 570 ± 36 to 513 ± 30 thousand years ago (ka) and are most plausibly assigned to an MIS 14 deposition, with artefacts produced during MIS 15 (approx. 560–620 ka). Indeed, these IR-RF samples provide minimum ages for artefacts. Combined with evidence from exposures linked to the original quarrying activities, a similar MIS 15 age is suggested for the more than 330 handaxe artefacts discovered in the 1920s. The remaining excavated artefacts come from levels dated to between 347 ± 22 and 385 ± 21 ka (MIS 10 or 11), with this later age interpreted to reflect post-MIS 14 deposition by substrate gullying and solifluction. These data demonstrate Fordwich to be one of the earliest Palaeolithic sites in northwestern Europe, and to retain the only large Acheulean handaxe assemblage directly dated to pre-MIS 13. Thus, Fordwich is determined to be a crucial piece of the pre-Anglian Palaeolithic puzzle in northern Europe.

Hominins likely occupied northern Europe before one million years ago

“…Thus, future discoveries may provide physical evidence of hominins in northern Europe before one million years ago. Whether we do find evidence of these early and potentially limited incursions is another question, but as recent discoveries in the Bytham, Somme, and Stour Valleys attest, the early Lower Palaeolithic record of northern Europe is not yet exhausted 10,12,14,19,38 . In this way, the OLE models act as a temporal guide for future fieldwork investigations while simultaneously providing new data to supplement discussions based on known archaeological, fossil, climatic and palaeoenvironmental evidence (e.g., 3,4,6,11,36 ).…”

“…[50][51][52] This might be thought to redress the northsouth imbalance, but the vast majority of quarries are now inaccessible for detailed investigation or dating and most were situated on post-MIS 13 terraces. There are exceptions where higher terraces have been reinvestigated, such as on the Solent, 53 the Bytham, 10,14 the Stour, 19 and the Somme. 12 However, all try to contextualise older collections, with smallscale fieldwork programmes compared to the often much larger excavations in southern Europe (e.g., 32,[55][56][57] ).…”

“…Whether we do find evidence of these early and potentially limited incursions is another question, but as recent discoveries in the Bytham, Somme, and Stour Valleys attest, the early Lower Palaeolithic record of northern Europe is not yet exhausted. 10,12,14,19,38 In this way, the OLE models act as a temporal guide for future fieldwork investigations while simultaneously providing new data to supplement discussions based on known archaeological, fossil, climatic and palaeoenvironmental evidence (e.g., 3,4,6,11,36 ). These models are not the well-dated sites with unambiguous traces of hominin presence requested by Roebroeks et al 11 ; that is, they do not provide conclusive evidence of hominins in northern Europe before Happisburgh.…”

Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK

“…However, this interpretation should be tempered in the knowledge that the non-lithic component of Mode 1 technologies at Clacton and Schöningen included specialized wooden projectile weapons (spears, throwing sticks) and thrusting spears (which are still unknown from any Acheulean context) 28 , 89 , 90 coupled with evidence from Clacton for hunting of prime-aged rhinoceros (unpublished data). By contrast, handaxes at many Lower Palaeolithic sites, such as Fordwich 84 , Kent's Cavern 85 , the Bytham River in the Brecklands (UK) 91 and Abbeville (France) 92 , were produced solely with hard hammers, reflecting a technologically simpler Mode 2 knapping technology.…”

“…The British Acheulean record also includes assemblages of roughly made and irregularly-shaped handaxes knapped with a few hard-hammer removals. These are exemplified by the assemblages from Fordwich 84 and the Breccia at Kent’s Cavern 85 . The two groups of finely-shaped handaxes on the one hand and the crudely worked handaxes on the other exemplifies a major typological division, which is probably determined solely by the types of percussor(s) used in their manufacture.…”