Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project
Francis Wenban-Smith, 2009. https://doi.org/10.5284/1000073. How to cite using this DOI
Data copyright © Dr Francis Wenban-Smith unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Primary contact
Dr
Francis
Wenban-Smith
Department of Archaeology
University of Southampton
Avenue Campus
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
England
Tel: 02380 596864
Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 922
- ALSF Project Number: 3836
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000073
- How to cite using this DOI
Overview
Project Background
At its heart the Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project (MVPP) is about aiding the curatorial community in managing the Lower/Middle Palaeolithic resource contained in the aggregate extraction landscape. The project is implemented in the Medway region, but many of its methods and outcomes are directly transferable to the wider aggregate resource. Within the context of this broad goal, the project includes:
- Development of a Medway region Palaeolithic Research Framework, incorporating (a) an integrated chronological and stratigraphic framework for sand/gravel aggregate deposits, (b) a regional framework of cultural change/patterning and hominid settlement history and (c) regional research priorities
- Characterisation and predictive modeling of the Palaeolithic resource in the Medway region with identification of zones of significance and research priorities
- Specification of appropriate methods for evaluation/excavation of Palaeolithic remains within different zones of the Medway Palaeolithic resource
- Enhancement of Palaeolithic SMR datasets in the Medway region
The MVPP builds on previous work, in particular the Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project (SRPP) and The English Rivers Palaeolithic Survey (TERPS) in the 1990s, and on work carried out since 2000 under phase 1 of ALSF by the Shotton Project, the Thames Estuary Survey of Mineral Extraction Sites (TESMES). These projects have essentially been about collating known information on Palaeolithic find-spots, and relating them to existing British Geological Survey (BGS) mapping.
The MVPP builds on this work in three main directions. Firstly, fieldwork was carried out to validate and develop the essential chrono-stratigraphic framework. Current geological attribution of most Pleistocene aggregate deposits is highly suspect, with inconsistencies between adjacent map-sheets and major problems of correlation between more widely separated groups of deposits. The fieldwork focused on dating, environmental sampling and artefact recovery.
Secondly, the MVPP has involved a more detailed analysis of previous Palaeolithic finds from aggregate deposits in the study region, including recording of typology and condition and reviewing provenance information. These data can contribute to assessing the significance of surviving aggregate bodies, as well as in constructing a regional framework of Palaeolithic occupation and cultural change.
Thirdly, while previous projects have generally produced relevant information from which to develop a predictive model, this step has not yet been taken. The MVPP will combine collation and analysis of findspot information with better understanding of the Pleistocene framework, achieved through a combination of improved lithostratigraphic synthesis and OSL dating, to, for the first time, generate a GIS Palaeolithic Resource Predictive Model that both characterises the Palaeolithic resource and predicts zones of interest and significance.
In course of addressing these core curatorial objectives, MVPP has also contributed to a number of national and regional Palaeolithic research priorities. These primarily concern developing the framework of cultural change and settlement history in the Medway region, and comparing/contrasting this with that of other parts of southeast England. In addition, work has been carried out that has enhance understanding of a number of key sites; in particular: (a) Cuxton in Kent, where we have done new dating analyses, and recovered important new finds; and (b) Westcliff High School for Girls, in Southend, Essex, where we have identified lithic artefactual evidence of pre-Anglian hominin presence.
The Cuxton site has been reliably dated by OSL to c. 230,000 years before present (BP) (the start of Marine Isotope Stage 7), making it the youngest site in the country with an almost exclusively handaxe-focused material culture, and raising important questions over the implications of the broadly contemporary (it is thought!) occurrence of almost exclusively Levalloisian material at sites such as Crayford, Baker's Hole and the Lion Pit tramway cutting. In addition, we recovered at Cuxton, immediately beside each other and in the same specific archaeological level, two magnificent specimens of contrasting types of handaxe - a cleaver and a ficron (cf. cover image). Confirmation of (a) the deliberate manufacture of specific types of handaxe, and (b) the co-occurrence of contrasting types within the same material cultural tradition, has a number of implications for our thinking about the cognitive capabilities of these early hominins. In marked contrast to the spectacular finds at Cuxton, but no less important, a single small flint waste flake was recovered by MVPP sieving of Clinch Street/Canewdon Gravel at Westcliff High School for Girls. This gravel is, however, dated to c. 600,000 BP, before the Anglian glaciation, and thus this one unprepossessing piece of flint is the earliest evidence of hominin presence in Essex or Kent. The project also recognised the need to promote understanding and appreciation of aggregates archaeology to the widest possible audience beyond the curatorial and professional archaeological constituency, and included a number of initiatives aimed at achieving this.
The digital archive
The digital archive currently consists of two reports (Essex and Kent). Any use or quotation of information from the reports should be cited as follows:
- Wenban-Smith, F.F., Bates, M.R. & Marshall, G. 2007. Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project Final Report: The Palaeolithic Resource in the Medway Gravels (Essex). Report submitted to English Heritage, and made available March 2009 through ADS.
- Wenban-Smith, F.F., Bates, M.R. & Marshall, G. 2007. Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project Final Report: The Palaeolithic Resource in the Medway Gravels (Kent). Report submitted to English Heritage, and made available March 2009 through ADS.
Non-digital Archive and Publications
In addition to the reports contained within the digital archive the Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project also produced the following outputs:
| Article in published serial |
|---|
| Wenban-Smith, FF. 2004: Handaxe typology and Lower Palaeolithic cultural development: ficrons, cleavers and two giant handaxes from Cuxton, Lithics 25, 11-21 (Text available at http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/41481/) |
| Other Literary Outputs |
| A series of leaflets and posters, included in the appendices of the main reports. |
| Lectures / Academic papers |
| Lithic Sudies Society meeting, Maidstone, March 2006 |
| Educational Visits |
| Aylesdon Primary School, Maidstone, September 2005 |
| Westborough Primary School, Southend, September 2006 |
| Workshops |
| English Heritage / English Nature, Peterboroguh, March 2006 |
| Other |
| Public lecture, Maidstone museum, March 2005 |
