Boxgrove, West Sussex
Renewed fieldwork was undertaken in response to the discovery of a hominid left tibia in December 1993. The site is located in a large sand and gravel quarry, 7 km east of Chichester and consists of a number of preserved landsurfaces contained within a complex suite of Middle Pleistocene sediments. Stone tools and butchered animal remains are found on or within the relict surfaces, which are preserved in a strip c 300m south of a buried chalk cliff-line. Boxgrove is the proposed type site for the major temperate stage, dated to the period 524-478 ka bp, prior to the Anglian Glaciation. It contains the most complete record of climatic and environmental change, over a 103 year timescale, in Britain.
Between October and December 1993 a series of geological test trenches were excavated in the western quarry of the Boxgrove Quarry complex (Q1/B) and during analysis of this work it became clear that the post-burial processes operating upon the flintwork and faunal remains were not adequately understood because the standard conformable sedimentary sequence had been altered by a body of water that originated to the north of the site. Calcareous deposits were deposited by this water flow that probably had as its source a spring issuing from the old chalk cliff to the north. Micromorphological work on the calcareous deposits shows them to comprise over 60% calcium carbonate and to contain palygorskite and pseudomorphs of halite. These salts are derived from the Cretaceous Chalk and support the hypothesis of a spring fed origin. Underneath the calcareous sediments the lagoonal silts have been disturbed and involuted, and nearer to the main body of the water hole the silts have lost all of their original structure and become homogenised. The processes that caused this phenomenon are also responsible for the disruption of the calcareous units and their injection downwards and upwards. The mechanism of disturbance was the movement of the overlying gravels across the saturated finer sediments underneath.
The faunal remains also indicate a wet environment close to an ephemeral spring fed stream. The western edge of the area contains a mammalian fauna similar to that from other parts of the site. However, it changes dramatically towards the water source and related sediments where the scats of the European mink Mustela lutreola together with abundant fish remains have been found; the area has also yielded a large number of wildfowl bones from both excavation and sieving. Species identified include bewick swan, greylag goose, mallard, and teal and moorhen. Beneath the calcareous silts at the interface of the marine sands and lagoonal silts, a more terrestrial fauna has been found. These faunal remains represent in part a natural death assemblage, and also an assemblage formed as the result of human hunting and butchery.
A substantial amount of lithic material was recovered associated with butchered faunal remains during the excavation of the geological profiles. The lithics were predominantly from the lagoonal silts and comprised debitage, bifaces, and a significant proportion of anvils and hammerstones. The final geological trench, contained the hominid tibia, at the level of the spring deposits. A metre lower down, at the junction of the marine sands and marine silts a new land surface was discovered that revealed 8 handaxes and butchered bone in a tight concentration. The archaeology at the edge of the water bodies was significantly different and richer, at all levels, than that excavated in other parts of the quarry.
As a result of these discoveries, a main area excavation of c 250 m2 was undertaken between May and the end of October 1995. The excavation recovered archaeology from all 3 horizons; the uppermost hominid tibia level yielded mainly faunal remains. The intermediate level in the Slindon Silts contained abundant artefacts and faunal remains but, as predicted from the test pit survey, it had been disturbed by soft sediment deformation. The lowest level, at the junction of the Slindon Sands and the Slindon Silts was an in situ horizon containing archaeology deposited on a surface modified by freshwater run-off from the direction of the cliff. The archaeology included a butchered rhinoceros, deer, bison and horse.
The opportunity to study butchery techniques and resource utilisation is exceptionally rare in the Old Stone Age; where, given the extreme antiquity of sites, most material is in a derived context. Cut marks on the bones, made by flint tools, show that carcasses were skinned, disarticulated, and defleshed at the site, prior to the bones being smashed open to extract marrow. In addition to the 155 handaxes used for the butchery, the excavation also revealed unprecedented numbers of utilised flakes, anvils, hammerstones, and soft hammers, including the world's oldest antler tool. At the end of the excavation, 2 lower central incisors from a hominid were recovered from the same lower horizon, these were subsequently shown to have derived from a single individual. The 2 teeth were found 1.3m apart in an area rich in flintwork and fauna. The teeth themselves provide many new avenues for research. Dietary preferences can be reconstructed from analysis of microscopic traces on the tooth surface. Age at death may be estimated from the degree of wear and incremental growth structures. Additionally, the teeth display interesting pathology: this consists of a build up of calculus (tartar) around the base of the teeth, within which particles of food debris and bacteria should be trapped. There is also pathological alteration of the root, indicating that the individual suffered from severe periodontal disease. The teeth have cutmarks across the buccal/labial surface, a trait observed in Neanderthal fossils and in some modern human communities, such as the Inuit. These cutmarks result from using the mouth as a third hand, normally to hold pieces of meat, whilst they are being worked with a cutting tool. The hominid teeth were found 0.9m below the tibia, implying that they belonged to another individual. The depth of sediment separating the 2 individuals indicates that they probably lived hundreds of years apart and thus it was the owner of the tooth who may now be described as the oldest inhabitant of England!
At the southernmost end of the trench, close to the teeth, excavation revealed a length of wood, the organic component now completely replaced by sand, and the edge of a pile of enigmatic chalk blocks, the larger of which exhibit scratches made by stone tools. Further analysis of these areas is now being undertaken during the 1996 season of excavations. The results of the 1995 fieldwork met and exceeded the aims and objectives of the project and assessment of the data recovered is continuing this trend. The area contains archaeology of such integrity that when combined with geological, environmental, and taphonomic data, we are at last able to study many facets of the behavioural repertoire of Middle Pleistocene hominids, rather than just the material culture they left behind.
Further information about the Boxgrove Project is available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/boxgrove/
