Studies in the Palaeolithic Succession in England, No. III: Palaeoliths from St. Neots, Huntingdonshire

Abstract

Palaeolithic artifacts were recorded from a terrace on the Great Ouse, near St. Neots, Huntingdonshire, in 1927, the chief source being a group of pits dug in what was formerly part of Paxton Park, on the left bank of the river in the parish of Little Paxton. Mr Tebbutt has since recovered many more artifacts from this site. Taken together, the material constitutes a working industry, which will be described in this paper.A twelve-foot section, fig. 1, shows a basal layer (1) of boulders and large pebbles resting upon undisturbed Oxford Clay. One boulder of limestone measured two feet in length, and many other erratics showed the derivation of this layer from drift deposits of a preceding glacial stage. Bones and teeth of Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros antiquitatis, Rangifer tarandus, and Equus caballus were found here. This basal bed is not a solifluxion level in place, though it may represent a solifluxion layer which has been re-washed and sorted. Certainly the Oxford Clay has not been caught up into it, and the elements are uniformly water-laid, passing up, without break, into nine feet of compact, well-bedded, fluviatile gravels.

Two Sides to Every Story: Bout Coupé Handaxes Revisited

“…At Little Paxton, situated at 17 m OD on Terrace 1-2 of the Great Ouse, an assemblage containing eight handaxes, including one 'true' bout coupé, was recovered from a well-bedded fluvial gravel 3 m in depth. This conformably overlay a basal gravel that yielded remains of mammoth, horse, woolly rhinoceros and reindeer (Paterson and Tebbutt 1947). Although limited, this suite is consistent with the Mid-Devensian Pin Hole mammal assemblage type.…”

“…A normative account of bout coupés could therefore easily be written. Others though have raised the possibility that bout coupés served a specific function (Paterson and Tebbutt 1947;Calkin and Green 1949;Tyldesley 1987, 120-2), while recent French studies have suggested that Middle Palaeolithic bifaces had various types of edge and edge retouch, each designed for a different purpose (Soressi and TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY: BOUT COUPÉ HANDAXES REVISITED Hays 2000). In this regard it is interesting that many bout coupés show parallel bifacial retouch to the flat butt and fine marginal retouch to (usually) one face.…”

The British Late Middle Palaeolithic: An Interpretative Synthesis of Neanderthal Occupation at the Northwestern Edge of the Pleistocene World

“…This pattern of transport and curation is not evident at Riverside Pits, Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire, where artefacts were recovered in the basal gravels of the low terrace (Terrace 1-2) of the Great Ouse, alongside a Pin Hole MAZ (Tebbutt et al 1927;Paterson and Tebbutt 1947;Tebbutt pers. comm.…”

The British Middle Palaeolithic

“…A series of pits on the low terrace of the River Ouse near Little Paxton revealed over 3.5 m of fluvial sands and gravels from which both fauna and flint artefacts were recovered in the middle years of (Tebbutt et al, 1927;Paterson and Tebbutt, 1947). The fauna of woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse and reindeer are typical species of the Pin Hole MAZ.…”