Lithics 35

In recent surveys of the Palaeolithic record of the River Solent, a small handaxe assemblage recorded from Foxholes in the Bournemouth area of southern England has been identified as a candidate for evidence of the earliest Acheulean occupation of the Solent region, and among the earliest handaxe assemblages in Britain. However, archival material and cartographic evidence has been identified that indicates the provenance of the Foxholes material has previously been misunderstood. The correct provenance suggests that these handaxes are considerably younger than previously thought, with implications for the timing of the first appearance of handaxes in the Solent region. This paper serves as a cautionary tale of a potential pitfall when studying old collections recovered from gravels of Pleistocene rivers, and highlights the importance of conducting a thorough search for all available contextual information.

Many Palaeolithic sites first discovered in the late 19th or early 20th century lacked adequate publication and coherent curation of the finds, which were frequently exchanged or sold and dispersed. This study focuses on a number of minor sites that have suffered in this way. The study area is in the parish of West Wickham, Kent, now part of the London Borough of Bromley. Three men discovered most of the lithic material found in the study area in the years 1878 to 1898. All three gave partial accounts of their finds in various contexts during the period 1882 to 1908 and many of these accounts have been located for this study. Parts of their collections have been identified in the collections of two museums. The aim of this study is to investigate to what extent it is now possible to construct a useful account of the Palaeolithic of the Upper Ravensbourne Valley. It was found that that part of the material still available for research in museum collections may represent less than 40% of what was originally found. A final report, currently in preparation, will include an analysis of the lithics and further consideration of the context and age of the finds.

Short tribute to the late Ron Waite, highlighting his passion for collecting Palaeolithic and Mesolithic surface artefacts and giving some insights into his character. Ron possessed an unshakeable certainty about the veracity of his discoveries, which would become even more entrenched when others expressed scepticism, and had 'ups and downs' with the academic community. However, he accumulated more experience of finding palaeoliths than probably any other archaeologist in Britain, and his interpretations stemmed from a deep wisdom of the past culled from a lifetime's digestion of field data. LD

Reports on a conference hosted by Durham University in January 2014, under the umbrella of a larger series of symposia that began with the Unravelling the Palaeolithic conference at the University of Southampton in 2010. A total of twenty-four research papers and three keynote speeches were delivered during the Durham conference. Speakers from a variety of UK and European institutions presented the results from exciting new research covering the great range of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology. Some highlights and themes of the presentations are mentioned. LD