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The Lower Palaeolithic Succession in the Thames Valley and the date of the Ancient Channel between Caversham and Henley, Oxon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

John Wymer
John Wymer
Affiliation:
Borough Museum, Reading
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Extract

The reopening of the gravel pit at Highlands Farm, Henley (742813) in the ancient channel of the Thames between Caversham and Henley in 1955 has afforded an opportunity for studying the Palaeolithic contents of the gravel in detail. A short report was presented to the Society in 1956 after some initial observations, the most important of which was that the majority of the flint implements found were of Clactonian type (Wymer, 1956). In the five years since several hundred hand-axes and cores and many thousands of flakes have been recorded from this pit, many of them in situ, collected in the preparation of witness sections. The Clactonian has still been found to be the most abundant flint industry, but several types of hand-axes have occurred, some very highly finished and seemingly at variance with the early date assigned to the ancient channel on geological grounds.

The collection of material in situ has shown conclusively that all the types of flint artifacts found at Highlands occur at all levels; nowhere is one particular type stratified in relationship to another. It is only by comparing the finds with those made at other sites in the Thames Valley that justification can be found for claiming that more than one industry is represented. The gravel filling of the ancient channel resembles the majority of Lower Palaeolithic sites in the Thames Valley, and elsewhere in Britain: several flint industries are jumbled indiscriminately together. Many tens of thousands of years may divide the individual artifacts within the gravel, but there is no stratigraphical evidence to show it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 27 , December 1961 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1961

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