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2022 Excavations Begin at Barnham

The 2022 season of excavations begins at Barnham, Suffolk

The PAB project’s 2022 field season continues with a three-week excavation at the Lower Palaeolithic site at East Farm, Barnham which started this week under the blazing Suffolk sunshine.  After resuming field work in 2021, the main aim for this year is to further explore key areas within the site. As the research has evolved since 2013 the focus of the excavations has shifted from the re-examination of the relationship between handaxe and non-handaxe assemblages (as reported in Ashton et al., 2016) and the large-scale sieving of sediments to recover vertebrate remains to investigation of evidence of fire and also the changes in the environmental and archaeological signals over the earlier part of the interglacial.

To achieve the first of these, a small area has been identified adjacent to Area I where the critical part of the sequence can be explored in detail. Preliminary work last year revealed potentially heated sediments and the objective this year is to excavate and sample these sediments. A suite of analytical techniques will be used to establish whether the sediments have been heated and this may provide more indications of human use of fire.

The second objective requires further excavation and sieving of sediments from Area III. Unlike the marginal locations in Area I and Area VI where the succession is compressed and decalcified, in Area III the equivalent sediments are several metres thick, calcareous and contain abundant fossil material. Palynological analysis of these sediments has identified that they span zones I and II of the Hoxnian interglacial and this allows the archaeological evidence to be linked to the vegetation zones within the interglacial both at Barnham and further afield.

Professors Simon Lewis and Nick Ashton remove the handaxe found in Area III during the first day of the 2022 Barnham excavations

The first day on site saw a flurry of excitement as a handaxe was discovered while cleaning sections ready for excavation. While handaxes are known from the site, they are not common; only a few have been found during our excavations since 1989, to add to the small number known from earlier accounts. Given the potential significance of the find it was important to establish its context. The handaxe was found while removing backfill from one of the old pits left by the clay diggers in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Removal of the sediments that were used to backfill these pits has already provided insights into how the clay was extracted for brick-making. Careful examination of the sediments in which the handaxe was found showed that it lay beneath a block of sediment that had collapsed into the trench immediately after it was dug by the labourers. Digging deeper revealed that the artefact was only a few centimetres above undisturbed sediments but was in fact within backfill, a mix of sediments collapsed from the side of the quarry trench and material thrown back into the hole at the end of its productive life. The handaxe therefore cannot be attributed to any part of the succession in Area III.

Two members of the excavation team, Luke Dale and Dylan Jones, who spent several hours carefully cleaning and excavating around the handaxe, describe it as follows: this black flint handaxe is in excellent condition. It is 130mm x 95mm and has a cordate or teardrop shape. It is highly symmetrical and features a white chalky inclusion on each face, which may have been deliberately preserved during manufacture. It would have been shaped using hard stone hammers, with the final delicate touches added using a soft hammer, probably a piece of antler, to refine the shape. The handaxe has been sharpened with the removal of a flake from the tip, known as a tranchet, resulting in a razor-sharp cutting edge.

While this particular artefact is of limited use as it is not in situ, it is an interesting way to get this year’s dig underway! We hope that further evidence of human activity at this location 400,000 years ago will be found during this year’s excavations – the search continues!

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2022 Field Season Begins at Beeches Pit, Suffolk

Cutting 2 as prepared by John Wymer for the QRA Easter Field Meeting (photo: Simon Lewis)
Cutting 2 as prepared by John Wymer for the QRA Easter Field Meeting in 1991 (photo: Simon Lewis)

The focus of PAB field research activities in 2022 is firmly located in the Breckland of East Anglia, with excavations scheduled to take place at three Palaeolithic sites during the year. First up is Beeches Pit, West Stow. Like many Breckland sites this was once a clay pit, dug in the late 19th and early 20th century for brick-making. Despite early visits by geologists, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the molluscan fauna from Beeches Pit was studied in detail by Michael Kerney, and stratigraphical and archaeological investigations did not take place until the 1990s and 2000s. It was the combination of John Wymer’s interest in the area and the need for a site for the QRA’s 1991 Easter Field Meeting that led John, together with David Bridgland, Simon Lewis and Richard Preece to begin to tackle the complex geological succession (photo right). Within a few years John Gowlett had commenced archaeological excavations and the Beeches Pit story began to take shape. The geological sequence consists of glacial sediments, overlain by silts and clays, tufaceous deposits and sands, which contain rich molluscan and vertebrate assemblages. The molluscs include a highly distinctive suite of land snails that includes Lyrodiscus, whose ‘cousin’ is now restricted to the Canary Islands. The molluscs together with the mammalian fauna enables correlation of Beeches Pit with other sites in Britain and northern France. The site has been dated to the Hoxnian Interglacial or Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (c. 400,000 years ago). This work was fully published by Preece et al., (2006, 2007).

The site also contains an in situ Acheulian assemblage associated with hearths and some of the earliest evidence for controlled fire-use in Europe. The archaeological evidence is associated with the middle of the Hoxnian Interglacial, and correlates with other Acheulean assemblages in Britain at this time. However, recent work at East Farm, Barnham, has demonstrated an earlier phase of occupation of Britain during the first half of the Hoxnian Interglacial, represented by a core and flake industry traditionally assigned to the Clactonian. This is thought to indicate two separate populations of humans, with distinctive technology, occupying Britain at different times during the Hoxnian and derived from different source populations in mainland Europe, with important implications for understanding early human demography and social organisation.

This year’s fieldwork aims to establish whether there is a significant archaeological component in the lower part of the succession, and how this relates to the handaxe assemblage that has been excavated from the overlying deposits. This is an important matter to address as it will establish whether Beeches Pit conforms to the model that has been developed from other Breckland sites of distinct phases of human presence with different archaeological signatures. The work will answer two important questions: first, at what point within the interglacial did humans first occupy Beeches Pit and second, what was the character of the technology used by these first inhabitants, and does that technology change through time? In addition, sampling and sieving of all the excavated sediments will provide an opportunity to add to the vertebrate and molluscan faunal records from the site.

Breckland Palaeolithic Project excavations of Cutting 5 in 2018 (photo: Simon Lewis)
Breckland Palaeolithic Project excavations of Cutting 5 in 2018 (photo: Simon Lewis)
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Happisburgh’s Changing Coastline

The view southwards from the earth ramp at Happisburgh towards Cart Gap and Site 1 (photo: Simon Lewis)

The Palaeolithic story at Happisburgh has changed over the last twenty years or so, much as the coastline itself has changed dramatically over the same time. Indeed, the Happisburgh handaxe was discovered in situ in deposits that were revealed by the retreating cliffs between Happisburgh and Cart Gap. The exposures of the Cromer-Forest-bed Formation that were visible in 2000 when the handaxe was found are occasionally still to be seen, though much degraded by the passage of time and tides. These deposits have been the subject of detailed archaeological investigations which have placed the Happisburgh handaxe into a secure, geological, environmental and archaeological context, within a series of sediments deposited in an abandoned river channel during a period of temperate climate. The handaxe is now one component of an assemblage of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts that indicate human presence in this area around 500,000 years ago.

This is not the only evidence of human presence in Happisburgh’s distant past. A few hundred metres along the coast to the northwest, lies another set of Cromer Forest-bed Formation sediments. These have also been studied in detail and the resulting assemblage of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts, together with vertebrate remains, pollen, plant macrofossils and beetles, provides evidence for the landscape and environment that the first humans to reach Britain encountered. Exposures of these sediments on the foreshore also revealed human footprints, providing a brief glimpse of family life over 800,000 years ago.

Sand from the Sandscaping project further up the coast now covers Happisburgh’s beaches (photo: Simon Lewis).

As the waves continue to pummel the coastline, scouring of the beach has severely eroded these archaeologically-important sediments. A large number of artefacts and fossils have been released onto the beach to be found by a growing number of eagle-eyed collectors who have been busy over the last few years. These are more than ‘coastal curios’, they add to Happisburgh’s Palaeolithic record, particularly when the find-location is accurately recorded, as demonstrated in the recent paper by PAB researcher Dr Rachel Bynoe, which analysed the material amassed by three of the collectors.

Happisburgh’s coastline continues to undergo changes. Some of the 1.8 million cubic metres of dredged material emplaced between Bacton and Walcott for the Sandscaping project completed in 2019 has been moved along the coast by longshore drift to reach Happisburgh, so that in early 2022 the beaches at Happisburgh are beautiful stretches of golden sand, and what remains of the archaeological deposits are again hidden and protected from the waves. This has also introduced a new component to the archaeological record in this area. Retreat of the cliffs continues; in early 2021 a remarkable feature formed to the south of Happisburgh when, after several days of heavy rainfall, erosion of the unconsolidated sands that form the cliffs resulted in localised collapse. The feature may have started to form in late 2020 when the early stages of cliff collapse at the location were reported on social and news media. It has continued to develop and enlarge so that in early 2022 it is some 40m across and extends about 20m back from the adjacent cliff edge and it has developed into a dendritic or ‘tree-shaped feature’ in the cliff, with drone footage clearly capturing the extent of the erosion. A nearby pillbox also stands perilously close to the cliff edge and its days as a landmark on the Happisburgh cliff-top are surely numbered.

Cliff erosion at Happisburgh and part of the 2021 collapse feature as seen in January 2022 (photo: Simon Lewis).
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Looking Back … Looking Forward

As 2022 begins we take the opportunity to look back on the year just ended and to look forward to the year ahead

For the Pathways to Ancient Britain project 2021 saw a resumption of fieldwork, publication of several papers by PAB researchers and a range of engagement activities. Here are some of the highlights from 2021 and a quick look forward to plans for 2022.

The well-established excavations at East Farm, Barnham were put on hold in 2020, but we were able to return to the site in 2021 and complete a scaled-down season of fieldwork. This focused on sampling and sieving sediments from the fauna-bearing deposits in Area III, completing a borehole programme and exploring further the evidence of fire at the site. Later in the year, PAB researcher Dr Rob Davis led excavations at a less well-known Breckland site, Devereux’s Pit, Icklingham. An enlarged archaeological area yielded a number of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts and over 20 boreholes were drilled to investigate the stratigraphy. The identification of sediments containing shells and bone fragments offers the potential for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and amino acid dating, analysis is now underway. 

Devereux’s Pit 2021: Excavating in Area I (Photo: Simon Lewis)

Results from the Breckland Palaeolithic Project were published in two papers in 2021, looking at the geology and archaeology of the Bytham River. The first to appear (Davis et al., 2021) reassessed the old collections from a number of sites within the terrace deposits of the Bytham River and identified important patterns in the Palaeolithic record. The second paper (Lewis et al., 2021) established a revised model for the terrace stratigraphy of the Bytham River and through the application of Electron Spin Resonance dating methods, provided a chronological framework for these deposits, supporting the pre-Anglian age for these sediments and the Palaeolithic archaeology contained therein.

Although the focus of fieldwork has shifted from Happisburgh to the Breckland over the last few years, the Norfolk coastline continues to be an important research area for the PAB project. In 2021 the latest paper on Palaeolithic archaeology at Happisburgh (Bynoe et al., 2021 [OA]) reported on the substantial collection of finds from the beach and foreshore that has been amassed by collectors regularly visiting and ‘fieldwalking’ the beach and carefully recording the location of their finds using GPS. A large number of lithic artefacts and faunal remains were studied for the paper and spatial patterns could be identified relating to both known archaeological sites at Happisburgh and also suggesting previously unknown locations that may be releasing artefacts and fauna onto the beach.

Other papers to appear in 2021 included Rob Davis’s analysis of the Test valley’s Palaeolithic record (Davis et al., 2021), and a review of the early Acheulean in Britain (Ashton and Davis, 2021), developing a “Cultural Mosaic Model” to explain the differences in lithic assemblages in Britain and beyond.

Geology beach walk at Happisburgh
Deep History Detectives Weekend at Happisburgh: Geology beach walk led by Prof Simon Lewis (photo: Dr Ian Parker Heath)

Public engagement activities during 2021 provided further opportunities for PAB researchers to share their research with a range of audiences. PAB research associate Dr Claire Harris led a number of engagement activities. The Deep History Detectives weekend in July comprised a knapping workshop, training in artefact identification and beach walks to explore the geological succession and archaeological sites along the Happisburgh coastline. A collaborative project, funded by Queen Mary University of London, with members of the education team from Norfolk Museum Service enabled the development of a teaching resource for school groups visiting Cromer Museum. In November the PAB project partnered with the Prehistoric Society to run an online panel discussion “Are genes deep history?” as a contribution to the 2021 Being Human Festival of the Arts and Humanities.

So, what’s in store in 2022? Hopefully it will be possible to continue the field excavations at Barnham and Devereux’s Pit. In addition, a small-scale excavation is planned at Beeches Pit, West Stow, to investigate the archaeological content of the lower part of the sequence. Work at Happisburgh is continuing with more beach finds to analyse and write up as well as results from Site 1 to progress towards publication. Another paper from the Breckland Palaeolithic Project, this one reporting the results from the Little Ouse terraces, including the important Palaeolithic sites at Santon Downham and Barnham Heath is also in the works. All in all, it looks like another busy year ahead!

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Project THAMES – Thameside Humans: A Middle England Story

Reading University PhD student, and PAB research associate, Kathryn Price writes the first in an occasional series of posts about her research project.

Yes, you have guessed correctly that the project title was formed to fit the words THAMES, with a little inspiration from Tolkien and a lot of help from my friend John. However, it does aptly describe in a few words this PhD project. The PhD is funded by the AHRC and is a joint project between the University of Reading and the British Museum. I am very fortunate to have three members of PAB as supervisors – Nick Ashton, Rob Davis and Simon Lewis as well as those from the university – Rob Hosfield and Rob Batchelor – an incredible line up!

At its centre, this PhD is investigating the evidence for the early human (hominin) presence in the Middle Thames – prior to 500,000 years ago. I am examining the technologies and landscapes of some of the first human occupants of North-Western Europe, through the lens of the Middle Thames from Reading to Beaconsfield; a ‘snapshot’ of an inland river system with preserved terrace remnants that were deposited to prior to, and were (mostly) unaffected by, the Anglian glaciation around 450,000 years ago (MIS 12).

I will be assessing the early human record in the Middle Thames through a variety of ways; lithic analysis of artefacts in museum collections as well as potentially recovering new artefacts through fieldwork; a re-mapping of the pre-Anglian terrace remnants using existing borehole data and new fieldwork to clarify the terrace sequence; contextualising artefacts to individual terraces through the analysis of historic mapping and other documentary sources; and (in hope!) potentially finding further artefacts in museum collections. Combining all these threads together, a clearer picture of the nature and timing of the occupation of the Middle Thames by hominins in the pre-Anglian will begin to emerge.

The project is linked to two key issues in Lower Palaeolithic research:

  1. Was initial colonisation focused on coastal rather than inland settings (where hominins may have been exploiting oceanic climates and specific food resources such as seaweed)?
  2. Were inland occupations dependant different technologies (e.g., variations in the use of shelter and/or fire), changes in food acquisition techniques, and/or social strategies?

Study AreaThere is so much to find out! When and to what extent were hominins venturing into the heart of the Thames? What technologies did they have to rely on? How significant is the handaxe? How does the archaeological record of this inland environment compare with those along the lower reaches of the Bytham River in estuarine environments? Will we find artefact similarities with sites such as Pakefield, Brandon Fields or Warren Hill? Will we be able to uncover the presence of early pioneer populations in the Middle Thames?

Follow progress here!

 

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Devereux’s Pit 2021 field season completed

As the covers go on for the last time this year at Devereux’s Pit, Kathryn Price summarises progress with the excavations of this Lower Palaeolithic site.

Rob Davis supervises the final covering of the site (photo: Marcus Hatch)

The third and final week at Devereux’s Pit has seen the continuation of all hands to trowels in steadily and efficiently excavating the northern and eastern sections of Area I. For the first season of a new excavation, a tremendous amount has been achieved in just a short space of time. Almost 300 artefacts have been recovered, more than 100 samples collected for future sieving and analysis, 10 square metres have begun to be systematically excavated and 28 boreholes have been recorded.

In the eastern area of Area I, the initial humps and bumps of left-over sediment from the old quarry pits were removed, and the whole surface is now being excavated as one large area. As the artefacts begin to emerge, the true nature of their scattering is revealed, and rather excitingly, these are in the sediments overlying what we think to be the main archaeological horizon – the main artefact-yielding horizon is still to come!

Excavating in Area I (photo: Simon Lewis)

In the northern end of Area I, excavations concentrated on expanding the previously-dug test pit to follow the extent of the sediments which first yielded the intriguing 100+ artefacts. As the grey clayey sands were excavated both above and below the artefact-rich stony layer, a high number of artefacts from a relatively small area were again revealed including hard and soft hammer flakes, handaxe thinning flakes and a few pieces of burnt flint. There is still much more to be recovered from this area, as in the eastern part of Area I, the majority of the artefact yielding horizon still remains.

The weather has been very kind to us this week, being dry and sunny with cloud cover just when we needed it to carry out the photogrammetry (phew!). Spirits were high as a healthy competition emerged to who would be the first area to reach artefact number 250 (it was the northern area!) but the prizes of cookies and chocolate were shared by all.

It was with some sadness that the site was covered on the last day of the excavations but with the feeling of a great first season reflecting on all that had been achieved. There was also excitement in the air – of knowing that this was just the beginning of the story of Devereux’s Pit.

The Devereux’s Pit 2021 excavation team (photo: Rob Davis)

 

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Shovelling Earth: Excavation Update August 2021

“Shovelling earth for all that we were worth …”

In the second week of this year’s excavations at Devereux’s Pit the hard work of removing backfill and preparing the ground is complete and excavation is now underway. The sounds of the diesel engine of the digger and the hammering of the drilling rig have subsided, to be replaced by the scrape of trowels on sediment, accompanied by stone chats and wrens in the trees and a buzzard calling as it circles overhead. As one of the team put it, the pit has changed from a building site to an archaeological site!

Devereux Pit, August 2021
Devereux’s Pit, August 2021 (photo: Simon Lewis)

Establishing the extent of what has become Area I has proved a challenge as the now-familiar indications of clay extraction for brick making in the 19th century have resulted in a series of quarry cuts and rectangular pits which have limited the available areas of sediments that are known to contain Palaeolithic artefacts. However, there is a sufficiently large area to excavate this year and undoubtedly scope for further work in future years. The small team of excavators are now working in a series of 1m squares to remove the sediments and reveal the archaeology within. As well as recording the position of every artefact, all the excavated sediments will be retained for sieving to establish whether there is any faunal content within the deposits.

The borehole work in and around the pit has significantly increased our understanding of the distribution of the sediments and their relationship with the glacial deposits in the area; tills and gravels have been identified in a number of deep boreholes. In addition, a network of closely spaced shallow boreholes will allow a detailed deposit model of the sediments within the pit to be produced once all the cores have been logged and processed!

The weather has been varied this year; week one saw high winds and rain, week two gave some respite with a few days of fine and sunny weather which always helps to keep the spirits up. Week three looks like being another mixed bag of weather but hopefully all the objectives for this year’s field season will be achieved by the end of the final week and we will have a good assemblage of artefacts and a range of other data from the site to work on over the coming months.

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Undiscovered country: Lower Palaeolithic excavations in the Breckland

There are many Palaeolithic sites in the Breckland that have been the subject of collecting and research, some of them for over a hundred years, and the region has played an important part in the development of Palaeolithic archaeology as a discipline (Davis et al., 2017 [PDF]). This also means that identifying a site that has received rather less attention from archaeologists and geologists is something of a challenge. One such example is Devereux’s Pit in the parish of Icklingham, despite, or perhaps because of, its proximity to the well-known and internationally important Palaeolithic site of Beeches Pit, less than a kilometre away. The site, also known as Icklingham Brick Pit, is a former clay pit between the Suffolk villages of Icklingham and West Stow. The clay pit and adjacent brickyard were operated by William Devereux during the second half of the 19th Century. It was active at the time of the 1st edition Ordnance Survey mapping in 1882 but had ceased to operate by 1903 when the 1st revision mapping was completed.

Devereux’s Pit (photo credit: Simon Lewis)

The site is described by Skertchly, an officer of the Geological Survey (in Whitaker et al. 1891), who notes:

“At the brickyard about a mile E.S.E. of Icklingham All Saints Church, beneath the gravelly soil, dirty loess-like loam is worked to the depth of 15 feet. It dips westward at an angle of about 2°, and in places contains freshwater shells, many fragmentary. Bulimus is the most common genus, Pupa is frequent [no freshwater genus is named.—W. W.] I have also found seeds of plants. No implements have yet (? 1877) been found; but I picked up a small flake, from a fresh piece of talus, that looked as though it had fallen from the loam. Bones and deer-horns have been found, but were buried up by the workmen.” (Whitaker et al. 1891:79).

Devereux’s Pit was also visited in the 1930s by T.T. Paterson as part of his study of the geology of the Breckland.

Despite the potential demonstrated by these early records, no major work was undertaken at the site until the 1990s. In 1997 and 1998, a team led by David Bridgland (Durham University) and Simon Lewis undertook some small-scale geological fieldwork at the site (Lewis 1998). Three sections were excavated and auger holes were sunk. The sections showed fairly consistent sequences of approximately 3 m of brown clays, silts and sands (the ‘brickearth’) overlying at least 3 m of grey clayey sands and silts. Shell fragments were identified at various depths and six molluscan species were identified by Richard Preece. These, along with ostracods and chara, are aquatic species indicative of a temperate climate.

Three artefacts were recovered, all flint flakes produced by direct hard hammer percussion, with one subsequently retouched to form a scraper (illustrated in Lewis, 1998). The condition and technology of the scraper strongly suggest it is Lower Palaeolithic.

Following this work, Devereux’s Pit was again overlooked as other Breckland sites became the focus of attention, so its archaeological potential remained to be demonstrated. The Breckland Palaeolithic Project (2016-19) conducted fieldwork at the site to demonstrate the presence of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts in undisturbed Pleistocene deposits and also to gain a better understanding of the sediments and to obtain further environmental information to help assess its potential on this front. The fieldwork, conducted over 16 days between November 2016 and April 2018, consisted of excavation of geological sections and archaeological test pits, boreholes and a ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey. The work confirmed the presence of a Lower Palaeolithic assemblage at the site and also some indications of burning including heated flints.

Following completion of the Breckland Palaeolithic Project, additional funding was obtained by PAB project researcher Dr Rob Davis to continue the work at Devereux’s Pit. Although no fieldwork was possible in 2020, this phase of work finally got underway in July 2021. A three week excavation has extended the area that is available for archaeological excavation and also carried out additional borehole work to establish the geometry of the deposits within the old pit. Initial indications from this fieldwork which, at the time of writing, is in its first week, are encouraging. Like the nearby site at Barnham, the 19th Century clay extraction has removed a lot of the important deposits. However, following clearing of spoil from an area adjacent to a previously dug section, undisturbed sediments that can be excavated have been identified and it is hoped that this will add to the small assemblage of around one hundred artefacts from the site. Fourteen boreholes have been drilled and we are beginning to get a better understanding of the complex stratigraphy. As in previous investigations, shelly sediments have been found and these will be processed to obtain environmental information and they may also be useful for dating purposes. It is becoming clear that the current work at Devereux’s Pit has the potential to add another site to the Breckland Lower Palaeolithic story.

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Barnham Excavation Update

Barnham 2021 Excavation Update
Drilling equipment used at the Barnham excavation, 2021 (photo credit: Simon Lewis)

As we approach the end of the 2021 season, it is good to be able to report that the last three weeks have proved to be very productive. The three main objectives for this year were to recover the site after a fallow 2020, to clear the substantial backlog of sieving from 2019 and to prepare the site for the next phase of fieldwork which we hope will begin in 2022. All these objectives have been largely achieved so we can reflect on a successful field season this year. The smaller number of people on site and the priorities for this year have meant that some areas were not reopened; Area VI, usually the most productive in terms of flint artefacts has not been excavated this year and as a result the number of finds has been less than in previous years. Area III, the focus of this year’s work, has yielded fewer artefacts, but excavation and sieving of these sediments has continued to add to the substantial faunal record and to the lithic assemblage. Clearing the backlog of samples from 2019, with a major sieving operation and on-site processing and sorting of the residues, has also provided a wealth of new material, including some potentially important finds.

In addition to this on-going work, a small test section adjacent to Area I has provided an opportunity to explore further the evidence of fire at Barnham. We hope to be able to undertake some preliminary analysis of samples over the next year and explore this evidence in more detail in 2022.

We have also been able to generate new information on the geometry and distribution of the deposits within and around the site. Twenty boreholes have been drilled to investigate the sediments in the eastern part of the pit and in the surrounding area. As always, testing the current understanding of the site against new evidence can throw up some surprises and these boreholes have provided a lot of new data which will enable us to refine the deposit model for the site.

The scaled down operation this year has allowed us to make good progress, while the quantity of finds has been lower than previous years, the quality of the evidence that we are uncovering remains high. Barnham continues to provide evidence of the landscape and environment 400,000 years ago and important new insights into the lives of our early human ancestors.