Twisted Handaxes in Middle Pleistocene Britain and their Implications for Regional-scale Cultural Variation and the Deep History of Acheulean Hominin Groups

Mark White,Nick Ashton,David Bridgland

doi:10.1017/ppr.2019.1

Abstract

A better understood chronological framework for the Middle Pleistocene of Britain has enabled archaeologists to detect a number of temporally-restricted assemblage-types, based not on ‘culture historical’ schemes of typological progression but on independent dating methods and secure stratigraphic frameworks, especially river-terrace sequences. This includes a consistent pattern in the timing of Clactonian and Levalloisian industries, as well as a number of handaxe assemblage types that belong to different interglacial cycles. In other words, Derek Roe’s hunch that the apparent lack of coherent ‘cultural’ patterning was due to an inaccurate and inadequate chronological framework was correct. Some variation in handaxe shape is culturally significant. Here we focus on twisted ovate handaxes, which we have previously argued to belong predominantly to MIS 11. Recent discoveries have enabled us to refine our correlations. Twisted ovate assemblages are found in different regions of Britain in different substages of MIS 11 (East Anglia in MIS 11c and south of the Thames in MIS 11a), the Thames, and the MIS 11b cold interval separating the two occurrences. These patterns have the potential to reveal much about hominin settlement patterns, behaviour, and social networks during the Middle Pleistocene.

Highlights

White (1998a) suggested that Acheulean assemblages with high frequencies of twisted ovate handaxes all belonged to late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 or early MIS 10
Henri Breuil included the latter material in his Acheulean IV, the penultimate phase of the Acheulean before, according to him, it evolved into the Micoquian (Acheulean VI & VII; Breuil & Kelley 1954)
This includes a consistent pattern in the timing of Clactonian and Levalloisian industries, as well as a number of handaxe assemblage types that belong to different interglacial cycles

Summary

Introduction

White (1998a) suggested that Acheulean assemblages with high frequencies of twisted ovate handaxes all belonged to late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 or early MIS 10. White (1998a) suggested that assemblages containing relatively high frequencies of twisted handaxes all belonged to late MIS 11/early MIS 10, their occurrence at the top of the Swanscombe sequence suggesting they were present during the final part of the interglacial or interglacial complex (cf Bridgland 1994; Conway et al 1996).

Results

Conclusion