The artefacts from the present land surface at the Palaeolithic site of Warren Hill, Suffolk, England

Abstract

Over 2000 handaxes located in museum collections point to the archaeological importance of Warren Hill, a Lower Palaeolithic site in the path of the pre-Anglian Bytham River in East Anglia that was worked for gravel until about 1950. Yet apart from the initial report by Solomon (1933), detailed archaeological study was not undertaken until 2002. This report describes the surface fieldwalking carried out from 1964 to the time of the 2002 excavations, during which over 400 Palaeolithic artefacts have been recovered. Over 92% of these are flakes, some retouched, thus redressing the bias towards handaxes in the museum collections, and suggesting that flake tools played a major role in Lower Palaeolithic daily life. Also represented are notched pieces, scrapers, cores and a few Neolithic flakes. The surface comprises a lag deposit in which artefacts are concentrated in two main zones, contrasting with the subsurface material which is sparse and well-spread through the lithostratigraphy. The Palaeolithic artefacts are mostly rolled and edge-damaged, and patination is variable, suggesting a complex history. The two types of handaxe noted by Solomon – crude and fine – are confirmed. The preservation of typological integrity amongst surface finds that appear to lie in the path of a major fluvial feature is either a relic of humanly assembled, pre-Anglian bankside clusters eroded into the stream, or it may signal the arrival of post-Anglian humans who discovered a lag deposit rich in artefacts and flint clasts and proceeded to use, resharpen and re-arrange them. The dense clustering noted at Warren Hill is placed in a world context. Amongst the surface gravels an assemblage of flakes together with early 20th century rubbish was discovered; it is interpreted as a collector's dump of unsaleable artefacts.