TERPS - The English Rivers Project
Lorraine Mepham, 2009. https://doi.org/10.5284/1000063. How to cite using this DOI
Data copyright © Wessex Archaeology unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
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- ADS Collection: 929
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000063
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
Dr John Wymer, who died in 2006, was Britain's foremost Palaeolithic archaeologist, with an unparalleled knowledge of Quaternary geology and the earliest human artefacts in Britain that are occasionally associated with these deposits, and much of his work was carried out as a direct or indirect result of mineral extraction. His personal archive forms a collection of national importance.
Following his death, the JJ Wymer Archive Project was commissioned by English Heritage (EH code 5088) with the support of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF), with the intention of securing the Wymer archive and making selected elements of it accessible to public and professional audiences. One of these elements comprised John Wymer's card index of every known Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefact from Britain. These formed the basis of first the Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project and then the English Rivers Palaeolithic Project (TERPS), the results of which were published in 1999 as The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain. Wymer's work on the Southern Rivers Project and TERPS between 1993 and 1997 was conducted in conjunction with Wessex Archaeology, who also undertook the work on the Wymer Archive Project.
As part of the development of the Wymer archive, the data gathered for TERPS have been used to create a database, which is available to search or download here. PDF versions of the two volumes of The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain, for many years out of print, are also available to read or download here, and digital versions of John Wymer's eight Field Note Books are also accessible through an ADS archive.
