Ancient Man in the Gipping—Orwell Valley, Suffolk

Abstract

In the course of my investigations of the district of Ipswich, Suffolk, I have found a large series of flint implements and other remains of man, ranging in date from the pre-Chellean of the Sub-Red Crag horizon of Pliocene times to the period of the Anglo-Saxons. The majority of these discoveries, so far as those relating to the Stone Age are concerned, were made in the beds forming the plateau, or in the sides of now dry valleys tributary to the main valley of the Gipping. Some little time ago, however, I determined to make—if possible—an examination of the deeply-buried deposits of the Gipping, and this research was later on extended to the tidal portion of the river which is known as the Orwell. It is now my purpose to give an account of this work, which has resulted in the getting together of a great quantity of flint implements, flakes, and cores, mammalian bones in considerable numbers, and some fragmentary portions of the human skeleton. I would here record my thanks to the Percy Sladen Fund, the Royal Society, the Ipswich Dock Commission and their Chief Engineer, Mr. Clarke, Messrs. Warren Livingstone, Ltd., Messrs. Alfred Coe, Ltd., Messrs Packard and James Fison (Thetford), Ltd., Miss Nina Layard, Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., Dr. Duckworth, Dr. C. Forster Cooper, Mr. Reginald Smith, the Curator and Mr. F. M. Cullum, of Ipswich Museum, Dr. T. W. Woodhead, Mr. A. S. Barnes, and Dr. G. Erdtman, who have each given invaluable help in one way or another to the prosecution of this research.

Middle Palaeolithic occupation of the southern North Sea Basin: evidence from the Sandscaping sediments emplaced on the beach between Bacton and Walcott, Norfolk, UK

“…There Found with handaxes in solifluction or outwash deposit Sainty, 1935;Sainty and Watson, 1944;Wymer, 1999 Bramford Rd, River Gipping, Ipswich 20 4+ ? Mixed assemblage with handaxes and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from gravels and peaty loam below floodplain Moir, 1918Moir, , 1931White and Jacobi, 2002 Hadleigh Rd, River Gipping, Ipswich 12 1+ ? Mixed assemblage with handaxes and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from gravels and peaty loam below floodplain Moir, 1918Moir, , 1931White and Jacobi, 2002 are 20 other suggested bout coupé findspots for East Anglia, but nearly all are isolated finds with little known about their context.…”

“…Mixed assemblage with handaxes and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from gravels and peaty loam below floodplain Moir, 1918Moir, , 1931White and Jacobi, 2002 Hadleigh Rd, River Gipping, Ipswich 12 1+ ? Mixed assemblage with handaxes and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from gravels and peaty loam below floodplain Moir, 1918Moir, , 1931White and Jacobi, 2002 are 20 other suggested bout coupé findspots for East Anglia, but nearly all are isolated finds with little known about their context. The only well-stratified LMP site is Lynford Quarry, dated to MIS 4/3, where excavation of a palaeochannel of the River Wissey recovered mammoth remains and a fresh condition artefact assemblage, including distinctive cordiform handaxes (Table 5).…”

Two Sides to Every Story: Bout Coupé Handaxes Revisited

“…This belief was mostly based on his observations at the nearby site at Constantine Road, situated at the same terrace level and displaying a remarkably similar section. Here, Moir (1918Moir ( , 1931 recorded Middle Palaeolithic artefacts (including flat butted cordiforms not accepted as 'true' bout coupé by Tyldesley) from a peaty loam below gravel of the buried channel. He believed this to be a Mousterian floor that he extrapolated laterally to subsume similar finds in the buried channel.…”

“…There is at least one fragment of a 'true' bout coupé (Tyldesley 1987, 34). The vast majority of the materialincluding the largest collection of potentially Devensian handaxes in Britain, several hundred flakes, Levallois products and a number of Upper Palaeolithic types including EUP leaf points, a Gravettian Font-Robert point and a Late Glacial bruised blade -was recovered by Moir (1931) from a low-lying (5À6 m OD) terrace of the River Gipping (Moir's Terrace 2). Moir had limited opportunity to examine these deposits, which were removed from continuously flooding pits by a suction pump, but he believed that Middle Palaeolithic ('Combe Capelle') artefacts in the gravel were derived from an older peaty loam beneath the gravel.…”