Category: Public engagement

Over the weekend of 17th-18th July members of the PAB research team, Dr Claire Harris and Professor Simon Lewis, were once again at Happisburgh to run the Deep History Detectives weekend event. This event was the culmination of a five-month project funded by the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary University of London. Through various sessions, it aimed to provide an opportunity for PAB researchers to meet people who were interested in learning more about the important Palaeolithic sites along the Happisburgh coastline, to share their knowledge and skills with participants, and to encourage them to get involved with the work of the Pathways to Ancient Britain team. Around 40 people attended one or more of the sessions which included a full-day flint knapping workshop, a taster knapping workshop, geological walks on the beach, and training in artefact identification and recording. 

The flint knapping workshops and demonstrations were led by experimental archaeologist Dr James Dilley. After an introduction to the basics of flint knapping, the participants were able to get “hands on” and have a go, first to learn how to remove flakes with a hammerstone then, as confidence and proficiency improved, at making a handaxe. Under James’s watchful eye and guidance, all the trainee flint knappers were able to make a handaxe. James also demonstrated other Palaeolithic tool making techniques, including an example of prepared core Levallois working to produce an excellent replica of a Levallois core and flake. The artefact identification session, led by Claire Harris, introduced the participants to the basics of artefact recognition, combining a short practical demonstration, led by James, then transferring this knowledge to look at material collected from the Happisburgh coastline. Participants learnt how to recognise the key features of a humanly-struck flake and how these can be distinguished from either natural percussion or thermally fractured flakes.

For those who wanted to learn more about the geology of the Happisburgh coastline, a geological walk, led by Simon Lewis, introduced the participants to the geological succession that can be seen on the beach at Happisburgh. The unpredictable build-up and removal of sand from Happisburgh beach, conspired to cover up most of the important sediments relating to the archaeological sites at Happisburgh, but it was still possible to tell the story of early humans at Happisburgh and also highlight the importance of on-going work by collectors who visit the area on a regular basis and how this knowledge, when shared with PAB researchers, can add greatly to our understanding of Happisburgh’s archaeological story. There was also the opportunity to discuss the likely impact of movement of material down the coast as a result of the recently-completed Sandscaping project between Walcott and Bacton.  

The main aim of the weekend was to provide new knowledge and skills relating to Happisburgh’s Paleolithic story. It is hoped that, armed with this new knowledge and understanding, our Deep History Detectives will continue to visit the area and be better able understand the geological and environmental evidence that can be seen on the beach and to identify and record Palaeolithic artefacts that can contribute to on-going research on the Happisburgh coastline. 

2020 marks twenty years since the first of a series of archaeological discoveries that have made Happisburgh a site of great importance in the British Lower Palaeolithic. The Happisburgh handaxe was found by a Norfolk resident walking the beach between Happisburgh and Cart Gap.

The handaxe was found in situ; embedded in the Pleistocene sediments that were exposed at low tide on the Happisburgh foreshore. Realising its significance, the finder reported its discovery and researchers were quickly able to visit the site and make some important observations on the deposits that the handaxe came from and their relationship to the glacial sediments exposed in the cliffs. Among the first on the scene was John Wymer, who recorded in his notebook a visit to Happisburgh with Peter Robins and Jim Rose with accompanying photographs of the handaxe and the deposits themselves. Wymer records subsequent visits later in the same year and again in May 2001, when a team of researchers from Royal Holloway University of London sank boreholes and dug trenches to establish the stratigraphy and recover material for analysis.

Three years later the site was excavated by a team from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project. Excavating the deposits in the inter-tidal zone proved challenging but productive as a small assemblage of artefacts was recovered together with faunal material. This was followed by excavations by the University of Leiden working with the AHOB team, which added to the artefact assemblage and provided significant new palaeoenvironmental information. The handaxe could now be shown to have been found in organic muds laid down during an interglacial some 500,000 years ago. These results have been recently published in Quaternary Science Reviews. 

During the 2004 excavations, a survey along the beach led to the discovery of what became known as Site 2 and, in the following year continued exploration led to the discovery of Site 3 (the locality excavated in 2004 becoming known as Site 1). Site 2 afforded little opportunity for extensive excavation; though a small excavated area yielded a handaxe from deposits immediately beneath the Happisburgh Till. Site 3 on the other hand offered the greater scope for excavation and each summer between 2006 and 2012 archaeologists could be found digging the sediments and sieving them in the sea to recover flint artefacts and faunal and floral remains. The faunal assemblage, in conjunction with palaeomagnetic evidence, led the researchers to conclude that the site dated to around 850,000-900,000 years ago, making it the earliest evidence of human presence in Britain. 

More archaeological information was revealed as the sea continued to erode the Pleistocene sediments. In 2013 a member of the research team was conducting a geophysical survey and noticed a particularly distinctive surface of the laminated sands and silts exposed by the waves near the old step tower. Closer inspection suggested they might be footprints, so a team was quickly assembled who returned to the site, in appalling weather conditions, to record the footprint surface before it was washed away. Analysis of the photographs showed beyond reasonable doubt that they were indeed human footprints and the size of the impressions indicated that they were left by a group of people ranging from adults to small children, who had walked across the soft mud flats around 850,000 years ago. These findings were published in PlosOne. Similar, but smaller, footprint surfaces were exposed in 2018 and 2019 in the same area. 

Approaching the end of the year is often a time to look back and reflect on past events, and perhaps this year more than most. It is interesting to ponder that so much of what we now know about the earliest humans to enter Britain stems from a chance discovery on a Norfolk beach. The Happisburgh story hasn’t ended, the coastline is still the subject of research and collecting activity and no doubt 2021 will bring more new information to add to what we already know and perhaps change our understanding of our distant past one more time.

This Sunday saw our first Community Beach Sieving Event at Bacton. The event was planned, with the support of North Norfolk District Council, as part of our Palaeolithic Artefact Discoveries from the Sandscaping area (PADS) Project and we hope that it will be the first of several community events – pandemic permitting.

We couldn’t have hoped for better weather for our first community event and we were joined by two enthusiastic groups of volunteers – a mix of experienced collectors, faces we recognised from previous events that we’d run locally, and some complete beginners.

Since the emplacement of the 1.8 million cubic metres of dredged material on the beach between Bacton and Walcott in 2019, the beach profile has been modified by wave action. As the beach has been reshaped it has become a favourite spot for local collectors to visit and their careful beach walking efforts have been repaid by a large collection of Palaeolithic material. The sieving event was designed to take advantage of the wave cut ‘cliff’ features to study the structure, composition and artefact density of these deposits. Establishing the density of artefacts within these deposits and any variations across the Sandscaping area, provides us with useful data alongside the large number of artefacts that have already been reported.

During the two 90 minute sessions on Sunday we sieved around 2.5 cubic metres of the deposit, this yielded one possible artefact, a small struck flake. While this is a small return for the effort it does point to a sparse presence of artefacts within the beach deposits. It also highlights the value of collecting from the beach surface where artefacts may be more visible and larger surface areas can be searched and does contribute to our knowledge of these dredged deposits.

Although the Sandscaping deposits offer a unique research opportunity we are well aware of the power of the North Sea to reshape the coastline – the ‘cliff’ features in the Sandscaping deposits bear witness to the sea’s power. Many of the Pathways to Ancient Britain project team have worked along this coastline for the best part of two decades and the last thing that we would want to do is to negatively impact the communities we have received so much support from. All the material, bar the one possible artefact, was left on the beach to be redeposited by the waves.

The Palaeolithic Artefact Discoveries from the Sandscaping area (PADS) Project is funded by North Norfolk District Council and is currently set to run for six months, from September 2020 to February 2021.