Middle Pleistocene Thames terrace deposits at Globe Pit, Little Thurrock, and their contained Clactonian industry

Abstract

Section cleaning and a small-scale archaeological excavation have been undertaken at Globe Pit, Little Thurrock, a site in the Corbets Tey Formation of the Lower Thames. Gravel outcropping at this site had previously yielded a substantial assemblage of Palaeolithic artefacts. Significant numbers of additional artefacts were discovered during the course of the work described here and served to confirm that a Clactonian industry is represented. The occurrence of this industry in the Corbets Tey Formation has hitherto been regarded as anomalous and indicative of an early and temporary incision to this level by the Thames. The recent work has shown that the artefacts do not occur in an isolated early remnant of gravel perched above the main level of the Corbets Tey Formation, but in the ‘feather-edge’ of the Corbets Tey Gravel itself, in the oldest part of the formation. Complicated sequences of down-cutting and aggradation are no longer needed to explain either the occurrence of Clactonian artefacts at Little Thurrock or the distribution of interglacial sediments within the Lower Thames terrace sequence. A new interpretation of this formation, and the Lower Thames sequence as a whole, is now proposed. This holds that the Clactonian gravel at Globe Pit represents deposition in the latter part of Oxygen Isotope Stage 10, although the material may have been knapped at an earlier date. Stratigraphically higher, younger divisions of the Corbets Tey Formation are thought to date from Stage 9 (interglacial fossiliferous brickearth) and Stage 8 (upper gravel). The younger divisions of the Corbets Tey Formation, at nearby Purfleet, contain artefacts made using the Levallois technique.