The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain

Nick Ashton, Simon Lewis, Chris Stringer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780444535979
• eBook ISBN: 9780444535986
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project (AHOB) funded by the Leverhulme Trust began in 2001 and brought together researchers from a range of disciplines with the aim of investigating the record of human presence in Britain from the earliest occupation until the end of the last Ice Age, about 12, 000 years ago. Study of changes in climate, landscape and biota over the last million years provides the environmental backdrop to understanding human presence and absence together with the development of new technologies. This book brings together the multidisciplinary work of the project. The chapters present the results of new fieldwork and research on old sites from museum collections using an array of new analytical techniques.- Features an up-to-date treatment of the record of human presence in the British Isles during the Palaeolithic period(700, 000 - 10, 000 years before present)- Takes multidisciplinary approach that includes archaeology, geochemistry, geochronology, stratigraphy and sedimentology- Coincides with the culmination of the AHOB project in 2010, providing a benchmark statement on the record of human occupation in Britain that can be utilized and tested by future research

1

The Changing Landscapes of the Earliest Human Occupation of Britain and Europe

Chris Stringer [email protected] Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom

Abstract

Since 2001 Members, Associates and collaborators in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project have contributed data on many aspects of the early human occupation of Britain and Europe. This review concentrates on the development of ideas about the earliest human occupations of Britain and Europe, both from my personal perspective and as a founder member of AHOB. The work of AHOB and its collaborators has produced a new and much firmer foundation for both old and new questions concerning the earliest occupations of Britain than I could have envisaged 30 years ago.

Keywords

AHOB

Britain

Pleistocene

Palaeolithic

Human evolution

Since 2001 Members, Associates and collaborators in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project have contributed data on many aspects of the early human occupation of Britain and Europe. In the earliest time periods, these range from the ground-breaking discovery of early Pleistocene colonisations of northern Europe to re-evaluations of previously known sites such as High Lodge, Hoxne, Purfleet, Banwell Bone Cave and Gough's Cave (Schreve, 2004; Stringer, 2007). The Hoxnian interglacial is now one of the best-studied periods in the British Palaeolithic, and many new data have been added for the succeeding and less well-known interglacials correlated with Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 9 and 7. The pattern of an apparent growing isolation of Britain leading to complete human absence in MIS 5 has so far been sustained, but is followed by evidence for the return of Neanderthals towards the end of MIS 4, and the arrival of Homo sapiens towards the end of MIS 3. Human absence during both the Last Glacial Maximum and parts of the Younger Dryas appears to be a real phenomenon, and refinements in radiocarbon dating have demonstrated the rapidity of human re-colonisations following the Last Glacial Maximum and Younger Dryas (see, e.g. Schreve, 2004; Lewis and Ashton, 2006; Stringer, 2007; other contributions to this volume). But in this review, I would like to concentrate on the development of ideas about the earliest human occupations of Britain and Europe, both from a personal perspective and as a founder member of AHOB. When I began working on the Quaternary in the 1970s, a fierce debate had developed in Britain about its sequence of glacials and interglacials, a debate of relevance to the archaeological and fossil human records not only of Britain, but also of the adjoining continent. A view based on vegetational changes recorded from pollen in ancient lakebeds was dominant, and this formed the framework for the influential Geological Society of London report (Mitchell et al., 1973). That report argued that there were four interglacials in Britain, the Cromerian, Hoxnian, Ipswichian and Flandrian/Holocene, with three intervening glaciations, the Anglian, Wolstonian and Devensian. For example based on pollen data, it was argued that the Ipswichian interglacial included sites such as Trafalgar Square, containing Hippopotamus amphibius and Palaeoloxodon antiquus, and sites such as Ilford and Aveley, with Mammuthus primigenius (now in fact often regarded as a late form of Mammuthus trogontherii at these sites) and Equus caballus. These distinct mammalian assemblages reflected the vegetational development of a single interglacial as it gradually warmed to its peak and then declined into the succeeding Devensian glacial stage (Stuart, 1982).

On the other side of the debate were palaeontologists such as my late colleague at the Natural History Museum (NHM), Anthony Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe believed that mammalian biostratigraphy provided an alternative and more accurate sequence than pollen alone could provide, and one which showed greater complexity. Based on both stratigraphy and faunal correlations, Sutcliffe argued that only the Hippopotamus-Palaeoloxodon fauna was truly Ipswichian, while the Mammuthus-Equus sites actually represented a distinct and earlier interglacial. There was no room in the pollen-based scheme for such an interglacial, but Sutcliffe argued that there was unrecognised complexity in the British record, and in fact this was to be expected from the emerging MIS records (Hays et al., 1976). While the Ipswichian probably correlated with MIS 5 (~ 125 ka), the ‘Ilford/Aveley interglacial’ probably represented the earlier MIS 7 (~ 200 ka) (Sutcliffe, 1985). Sutcliffe's position was reinforced by pioneering work on molluscan aminostratigraphy, led by David Bowen, which also suggested comparable complexity in the British record (Bowen et al., 1986). However, Bowen's results were controversial, sometimes inconsistent, and not directly applicable to key sites if they lacked the relevant molluscan species - hence the debate rumbled on for many more years. Sutcliffe's colleague and successor at the NHM Andy Currant has, with Danielle Schreve and the late Roger Jacobi, taken the mammalian biostratigraphic approach even further by creating Mammal Assemblage Zones (MAZ) that typify particular stages during the British Pleistocene, and these have provided an entirely new framework of which AHOB has made particular use (Currant and Jacobi, 2001; Schreve, 2001).

Important and timely work on the Thames sequence itself followed, and fed into the continuing debate about the British Pleistocene sequence. The Thames has undergone several significant changes of course in its early history, as it has been pushed progressively southwards to its present position by glacial advances and geomorphological changes. After its last major diversion, it started to accumulate masses of sediments in its new lower course (what David Bridgland has so appositely termed a staircase of terraces, rising with increasing age), and these have provided vital biostratigraphic information relevant to the early human occupation of Britain. A key assumption of these new interpretations is that this last major diversion was caused by Anglian ice and, moreover, that this glaciation can in turn be correlated with the marked MIS signal of Stage 12, about 450,000 years ago (Bridgland et al., 2004). Thus, we can place the highest post-diversion interglacial deposits at sites like Swanscombe in MIS 11 (~ 400 ka), together with their fossil human remains and archaeology. In turn, biostratigraphy, physical dating and geological considerations suggest a further correlation of Swanscombe and MIS 11 with the Hoxnian Interglacial (see, e.g. Schreve, 2001; Bridgland et al., 2004; Preece et al., 2006). The critical assumptions that the Anglian represents MIS 12, and the Hoxnian MIS 11, have been regarded as points of continuing weakness in British correlations, according to some continental researchers (see, e.g. Geyh and Müller, 2005), but these dissenters are in a distinct minority now. Most British workers are confident that the Thames sequence and the associated correlations have been correctly interpreted and dated, both relatively and absolutely, and that they are not a house of cards.

The Swanscombe hominin has been viewed through many different lenses since the discovery of the first cranial bone in 1935. It was initially recruited by Sir Arthur Keith to bolster his continuing belief in the importance of the Piltdown finds (Keith, 1938), and was later enlisted by Henri Vallois as part of a pre-sapiens lineage leading to modern humans, existing alongside that of the Neanderthals in Europe (Boule and Vallois, 1952). Now, following re-evaluations beginning in the 1960s, it is usually regarded as an early member of the Neanderthal lineage (Weiner and Campbell, 1964; Stringer, 1974; Hublin, 1988). It has quite short and flat parietal bones, and a vault that is relatively broad across the base and, in the middle of the occipital bone, there is a suprainiac fossa. This pit is rare in H. sapiens, but present in all known Neanderthals where the area is preserved. Support for the archaic and possible Neanderthal affinities of Swanscombe comes from its cranial shape affinities to the Middle Pleistocene Steinheim skull, and also from the extensive discoveries made in the Sima de los Huesos (SH) at Atapuerca, Spain. Following the 1975 recognition of the first human fossil, a mandible, systematic excavations have now recovered over 6000 human bones and teeth, representing the jumbled skeletal remains of some 28 individuals, mostly adolescents and young adults. These finds provide not only an unprecedented view of Middle Pleistocene human biological variation, but also flesh out the more limited palaeontological data from northern Europe (Arsuaga et al., 1997; Bermúdez de Castro et al., 2004).

The adult cranial remains range in endocranial volume from about 1125 ml (Cranium 5) to 1390 ml (Cranium 4), compared with an estimate for Swanscombe of about 1275 ml. Thus brain size (though not necessarily encephalisation, when body size is factored in) was certainly within the modern range, while both endocranial and upper limb asymmetry suggest a predominance of right-handedness in the sample. The middle ear bones are quite comparable with those of modern humans, lacking the apparently derived shape distinctions found in Homo neanderthalensis, while the preserved hyoids, like those of the Kebara Neanderthal, show no significant differences from those of recent humans. The cranial remains are comparable in overall shape with other actual or assumed Middle Pleistocene crania such as those from Petralona, Broken Hill, Elandsfontein, Swanscombe and Steinheim, and as in the latter two specimens, there is at least the incipient expression of a Neanderthal-like suprainiac fossa. The SH crania are long, low and relatively large and broad facially, but they show a marked range in facial shape. Some are rather flat, while others show strong midfacial and nasal projection, and inflated, retreating zygomatics, like those of Neanderthals. Mandibular and dental features combine those found in heidelbergensis fossils, with many more that anticipate the Neanderthals. Individuals were strongly built, particularly in the lower limbs, with estimated height and weight of male individuals about 1.75 m (females slightly shorter), and over 95 kg. The extensive dental remains are sometimes heavily worn, and large anteriorly, but not big by Neanderthal standards. Wear and scratch marks on the incisors show that they clenched these teeth to hold and cut or manipulate meat or vegetable matter, while the posterior teeth show signs of the use of toothpicks, presumably of wood or bone (Lozano et al., 2008). As already mentioned, the teeth themselves show many morphological traits that are characteristic of the Neanderthal lineage (Arsuaga et al., 1997; Bermúdez de Castro et al., 2003; Martinón-Torres et al., 2007).

It is worth digressing at this point regarding the age of the SH humans, because this is a critical question for human, and specifically Neanderthal, origins. When the SH fossils were discovered, their age was estimated on morphological and faunal grounds at perhaps 250 ka, supported by ESR and uranium-series (U-S) determinations on associated bones and teeth (Arsuaga et al., 1997). At the time, these were similar to some estimates for the age of Swanscombe and the Hoxnian Interglacial. Subsequent U-S dating of a flowstone capping the fossiliferous breccias suggested an age of more than 350 ka (Bischoff et al., 2003), potentially still compatible with the increased age estimate for the Swanscombe hominid discussed above (MIS 11, ~ 400 ka). However, further dating work on the SH flowstone has raised the age estimate to > 530 ka (Bischoff et al., 2007), which now places the hominin fossils in pre-MIS 12 (= pre-Anglian) times, potentially not only considerably older than Swanscombe, but also much older than any other European fossils that show comparable levels of ‘neanderthalisation’. This latest age determination, if applied to the SH human fossils, conflicts with other morphological data on the European record, and also with a metrically-based...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright page
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1: The Changing Landscapes of the Earliest Human Occupation of Britain and Europe
• 2: Climates of the early Middle Pleistocene in Britain: Environments of the Earliest Humans in Northern Europe
• 3: Palaeoenvironments of Ancient Humans in Britain: The Application of Oxygen and Carbon Isotopes to the Reconstruction of Pleistocene Environments
• 4: Mapping the Human Record: Population Change in Britain During the Early Palaeolithic
• 5: The Emergence, Diversity and Significance of Mode 3 (Prepared Core) Technologies
• 6: Technology and Landscape Use in the Early Middle Palaeolithic of the Thames Valley
• 7: The Early Middle Palaeolithic: The European Context
• 8: Continuities and Discontinuities in Neandertal Presence: A Closer Look at Northwestern Europe
• 9: Testing Human Presence During the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e): A Review of the British Evidence
• 10: The Mammal Faunas of the British Late Pleistocene
• 11: The British Earlier Upper Palaeolithic: Settlement and Chronology
• 12: The Later Upper Palaeolithic Recolonisation of Britain: New Results from AMS Radiocarbon Dating
• 13: New Results from the Examination of Cut-Marks Using Three-Dimensional Imaging
• 14: Pleistocene Hyaena Coprolite Palynology in Britain: Implications for the Environments of Early Humans
• 15: Mammal Associations in the Pleistocene of Britain: Implications of Ecological Niche Modelling and a Method for Reconstructing Palaeoclimate
• Subject Index