Some Hampshire and Dorset handaxes and the question of ‘Early Acheulian’ in Britain

Abstract

SummaryA Lower Palaeolithic handaxe found a few years ago at St Catherine's Hill, Christ church, is described. Various aspects of its technology and morphology appear archaic, and although it was found in a secondary context, with no clear geological evidence for its true age, relatively old Pleistocene gravels do occur at the summit of the hill. At the Ballast Hole, Corfe Mullen, a few miles west, J. B. Calkin and J. F. N. Green recorded some 25 years ago a number of handaxes very similar to this one, in a hill-wash deposit below bluff gravels; they suggested that the implements had originally been dropped on the surface of the Sleight (170 ft) terrace while the 130 ft terrace was forming nearby. These implements were demonstrably older than the well-made later Acheulian ovate handaxes from the same pit. They were called Middle Acheulian by Calkin and Green, but it is suggested that Earlier Acheulian would be a better description. Their likely context in the British sequence is briefly discussed. Early Acheulian occurrences in situ in early deposits are rare in Britain and Europe.