2 PIONEERS AT THE EDGE OF THE PLEISTOCENE WORLD: THE EARLIEST HOMININ VISITORS TO BRITAIN, ~1 MA–700 KA BP
1 Claims for occupation as early as 1.6–1.2 ma BP on the Taman Peninsula, Russia, at sites such as Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka and Rodniki (Shchelinsky et al. 2010) are excluded from this discussion because, in true Short Chronology style, their anthropogenic origin is disputed (Doronichev and Golovanova 2010).
2 The age of the three sites in the Loire Basin are primarily based on ESR. While there is certainly no reason to suggest that humans did not reach this part of France by ~1 ma BP, the ages of the terrace sequences thus produced do not seem to conform to widely accepted models of terrace formation (e.g. Bridgland 1994; Bridgland and Allen 1996; Bridgland and Schreve 2001).
3 Given recent geological work on the Cromerian Complex, and the fact that the key East Anglian deposits originally assigned to it may extend back a further six Marine Isotope Stages comprising at least 200 ka, we wonder about the continued usefulness of this term. It is probably time that Quaternary specialists abandoned this bucket term in favour of a new nomenclature based around appropriate type sites – for example: the Boxgrove Interglacial, the Westbury Interglacial, the Cromerian Interglacial – although we realise that at present dating uncertainties render this difficult in many cases.
4 Although included here for completeness, terrace formations and contained artefacts marked * date to the period of more significant and sustained occupation of the later Middle Pleistocene.
5 Had Reid Moir not been such a confrontational and controversial figure prone to making rash and outlandish claims (White 2004), his findings in the Cromer Forest Bed – some of which represent genuine artefacts – may have been more readily accepted. This would certainly have changed the face of recent debates!
6 For us, it remains somewhat confusing that in other respects Parfitt and colleagues reject the Lee et al. model – see text Box 2.2.
7 It also means that for the late Early Pleistocene and early Middle Pleistocene Europe was probably home to at least two species of archaic human, possibly contemporaneously, a likelihood that casts a different perspective on our understanding of lithic variability (Chapter 3); one that few modern scholars would have entertained merely a decade ago, but one which caused few conceptual problems for workers of the early twentieth century.
8 These are based on UK Meteorological Office figures for January and July 2010 (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/). In Britain as a whole, temperatures of −23º C were recorded in Aberdeenshire, and −17º C in Cheshire. Greater variation is evident over longer timescales. The mean winter temperature for England was 1.6º C, highlighting the problem of using means to determine experiential temperatures.
9 ‘The lower limit of the thermoneutral zone within which a mammal can regulate its core temperature solely by controlling its thermal conductance…as the temperature falls below this level homeostasis can only be maintained by increasing internal heat production, and incurring additional energetic costs associated with this increase in heat production.’ (Aiello and Wheeler 2003, 148).
10 The minimum temperature at which an animal can maintain normal body temperature by raising its basal metabolic rate to its maximum sustainable level, in humans usually about three times normal BMR.
11 Revised estimates for the ‘cold-adapted’ Neanderthals – a lineage with over a million year pedigree in Eurasia – returned fairly moderate lower critical and minimum sustainable temperatures, of 25.3° C and 1.9° C, respectively (Aiello and Wheeller 2003); we would be surprised if the tolerance limits of the earliest occupants reached these levels.
3 LANDSCAPES OF HABIT: THE HOMININ OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN, ~550–300 KA BP
1 Two conventions exist for dividing the isotopic record. The first uses an alphanumerical record and denotes periods of time (e.g. 13a, 13b and 13c). The second uses a decimal system, each point of which identifies an isotopic event (e.g. 13.3, 13.2, 13.13, 13.11)
2 See Sier et al. (2010) for a discussion on the sometimes considerable time lag between events in the marine isotopic record and their expression in the terrestrial sequences.
3 This realisation has created a rather peculiar situation with regards to nomenclature. That is, the Hoxnian must now be equated only with MIS11c, leaving MIS11a outside its boundaries. To account for this, some workers have begun to refer to MIS11 as the Swanscombe Interglacial (McNabb 2007). We advocate extending the Hoxnian umbrella to include all of MIS11, referring perhaps to MIS11c as the Hoxnian sensu stricto.
4 BEHAVIOUR AND SOCIETY IN LOWER PALAEOLITHIC BRITAIN, ~550 KA–300 KA BP
1 See, for example, the number of ‘handaxes’ for sale on eBay at any given time.
2 Caddington, Biddenham and Kempston, Bedfordshire; Croxley Green, Hertfordshire; Furze Platt and Grovelands Pit; Lent Rise and Baker’s Farm, Buckinghamshire; Station Pit, Kennett, Cambridgeshire; Gray’s Thurrock and Purfleet Botany Pit, Essex; Cuxton, Sturry and Twydall in Kent; Lower Clapton, Stoke Newington Common and Geldeston Road, East London; and Savernake, Wiltshire. Keswick Norfolk, has 49.
3 It is true that the method can throw up the occasional anomalous classification – for example when a spur on the margin of an obvious pointed handaxe renders it metrically an ovate in Roe’s terms (see Roe 1964, 1968a for full details), and beautifully made cordates may span both categories – but generally the method works well.
4 Potentially higher frequencies of humanly struck flake blanks may also account for the differences in cortex retention and refinement levels (but not scar counts), although only large nodules would have been capable of providing flake blanks of a size sufficient to produce these bifaces, again suggesting larger raw materials have been exploited in ovate assemblages.
5 White used Roe’s indices for elongation and refinement, and both Roe and Bordes for shape (White 1996; White unpublished data). While for elongation and refinement the methods differ only in terms of where they place the denominator and the numerator in calculating the index (and produce reciprocal figures), there are subtle differences in the methods of calculating shape. Bordes’ shape calculation is based on L/L1–4.574 × (midwidth/maxwidth); Roe’s simply butt length/length although, when all handaxes used in this study were combined, the correlation between the two methods was r=–0.975. This suggests that by including the midwidth/maxwidth ratio to the calculation, Bordes actually added little to the overall picture of biface shape and that the key to understanding shape lies in the relative position of the maximum width.
6 Perhaps the diminutive size of Middle Palaeolithic handaxes (Chapter 6) therefore explains the demise of the Neanderthals…
7 Both of us have had flirtations with this agenda although, in neither case, thankfully, did the relationship develop fully.
8 McNabb’s demonstration that variable frequencies of core working occur in the Acheulean, and that these are indistinguishable from Clactonian ones, means that arbitrarily dividing assemblages into the different cultural elements, especially those from secondary contexts (i.e. most of them) is a high dubious practice. As White (2000) notes, this means that supposed Clactonian elements at sites such as Purfleet Middle Gravel, Essex (Wymer 1985; Schreve et al. 2002); Fordwich, Kent (Smith 1933; Roe 1981); Highlands Farm, Oxfordshire (Wymer 1968); Denton’s Pit, Reading (ibid.); Croxley Green, Hertfordshire (ibid.) and Yiewsley, Middlesex (Collins 1978) must be rejected as integral parts of the Acheulean assemblages there. The logical corollary of such a proposition, however, is that many assemblages deemed to be Acheulean may in fact be mixed, making techno-typological comparisons between many ‘Acheulean’ and ‘Clactonian’ assemblages fundamentally problematic.
5 NEANDERTHALS OF THE FOREST STEPPE: THE EARLY MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC, ~325–180 KA BP
1 Bed numbers after Bridgland et al. 1995,; see Text Box 5.2.
2 Scott expresses some concern over the integrity of the surviving collections, which were collected by workmen from the Associated Portland Cement Company and are likely to originate from positions throughout the whole Baker’s Hole sequence, although she goes on to propose that much of it really did originate from the Coombe Rock, as reported by Abbott (1911) and Smith (1911).
3 Although Scott (2010) infers that this is simply underrepresented and thus, against the evidence, characterises the technology as predominantly recurrent
4 Scott (2010) divides the Creffield Road material into two assemblages – the St Barnard’s Area and the School Site assemblages – and notes a number of preservational and technological contrasts. These are considered together here because the two assemblages are from the same horizon, are only 60 m apart, are both fluvially disturbed and have an imperfect collection history. It is unlikely that the differences have any real behavioural meaning but rather relate to post-depositional channel activity at this terrace level.
5 Although, as shown in Text Box 5.5, the date of the site at Crayford is highly controversial.
6 Although, again, Crayford may belong to MIS65.
6 THE NEANDERTHAL STEPPE: LANDSCAPES AND HUMAN ENVIRONMENTS OF THE LATE MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC, ~60–35 KA BP
1 This chapter represents an enhanced and edited version of White and Pettitt 2011.
2 Foot loading = the ratio of weight to surface area of the foot (cf. Guthrie 1990).
7 LIMINAL WORLDS: THE BRITISH EARLY UPPER PALAEOLITHIC AND THE EARLIEST POPULATIONS OF HOMO SAPIENS
1 This has in the past been translated by some as ‘busked burin’ – a meaningless term – or ‘beaked burin’ (e.g. Jacobi 2007, 298) and although the translation ‘hooked (or hawk) nosed burin’ is appropriate we follow here the convention of leaving this in the original French.
2 It is generally assumed that Font Robert points were hafted as armatures on spears and javelins. Microwear analysis of 20 Belgian examples suggested, however, a variety of functions amongst which, a use as projectile points was apparently absent (Otte and Caspar 1987). This does not, of course, rule out their use as armatures.
8 SETTLING THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER: THE LATE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC, ~14.6–11.6 KA BP
1 We use the term ‘domesticated wolf’ rather than ‘dog’ to reflect the probability that the wolf was first domesticated as a weapon system (Musil 2000). It is also known from Bonn-Obserkassel at this time (Street 2002) where it is associated with a curved-backed point assemblages and the burial of two adults (Baales and Street 1998) and more widely in Europe at least by the Mid Upper Palaeolithic (Germonpré et al. 2012).
2 We recognise that this is a highly problematic area of research, and Meiendorf itself is not without problems, as De Clerk (2004) has noted. We make no assumptions about climatic, palaeovegetational or inter-regional correlations here, using the term Meiendorf simply to refer to GI1e, the first phase of interstadial warming during the Late Glacial Interstadial, prior to GI1d, the Older Dryas. In the sense we use it, it is simply a replacement for the term Bølling.
3 The site is sometimes referred to as Little Spinney, the name of the house in the garden of which the finds were made. It would certainly be worth further investigation of this locality and there is a very nice pub in the village.
4 Recently, one of us (PP) came across a second horse hyoid bearing regular groups of incised lines in the geological collections in Plymouth City Museum. It is marked ‘Kent’s Cavern’ and seems to derive from the museum’s wider collections from the cave, although no further information exists.
5 This site has also been called Ossum’s Cave. It is not to be confused with Ossom’s Eyrie Cave, which is located just above it and has yielded Holocene fauna (Bramwell et al. 1990).
6 Two uniserially barbed points from Sproughton, Suffolk, were initially dated to the Younger Dryas but recent redating of these using ultrafiltration has demonstrated that they are of Allerød age.