Excavations at Brundon, Suffolk (1935–37)

Abstract

For several years prior to 1935, the Ipswich Museum, through the kindness of Mr P. H. Jordan, had been enriched by gifts of fossil mammalian bones and teeth found in a gravel pit at Brundon, near Sudbury, Suffolk. From my occasional visits to this excavation, it was clear that a very rich bone bed existed there, and discoveries from time to time, of flint implements in the gravel, led me to conclude that excavations conducted at this site would yield good results. This was confirmed by the geological features of the section, which appeared to show a stratified gravel resting upon, and overlaid by, glacial deposits, thus affording an opportunity of examining that by no means common phenomenon—a true inter-glacial bed.I communicated with my friend Professor P. G. H. Boswell, F.R.S., who, after an examination of the section, agreed with me that it would repay detailed research. Work was begun by means of a grant from the British Association, which appointed the following as a committee to undertake the research: Professor W. B. R. King, O.B.E. (chairman), Mr Guy Maynard (Secretary), Mr D. F. W. Baden-Powell, Professor P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Mr J. Reid Moir, F.R.S., Mr K. P. Oakley, Mr C. D. Ovey, Dr J. D. Solomon, and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S.

A Levallois Knapping Site at West Thurrock, Lower Thames, UK: its Quaternary Context, Environment and Age

“…This can be seen clearly in MIS 7 mammoth populations in Britain, such as at Ilford, where the same plate count is retained, although size reduction in the tooth continues still further. The combination of small size and relatively low plate count has long been noted as a consistent feature in the Ilford population (Davies 1874;Adams 1877-81;Sandford 1924;Moir & Hopwood 1939) and at other interglacial sites, now widely attributed on several different lines of evidence to the MIS 7 interglacial, including Brundon, Suffolk (Moir &C Hopwood 1939), the Lower Channel at Marsworth, Northfleet, Stanton Harcourt, and Stoke Tunnel (Layard 1912). The West Thurrock specimens compare closely to those from Ilford, although no third molars are present.…”

Pleistocene environments, climate, and human activity in Britain during Marine Isotope Stage 7: insights from Oak Tree Fields, Cerney Wick, Gloucestershire

“…Aveley (Essex) provides a more recently excavated sequence (Candy and Schreve 2007, Schreve 1997, 2001a, 2001b) but only a small assemblage of artefacts ( n = 8) was recovered, which included a small, extensively worked Levallois core (White et al 2006). Beyond the Thames Valley, reanalysis of existing assemblages has also led to the suggestion that Levallois technology dominated to the exclusion of handaxes during MIS 8–7 in East Anglia (Scott 2006, 2011, White et al 2006), as evidenced by Levallois cores and flakes from Jordan's Pit (Brundon, Suffolk) (Moir and Hopwood 1939), but also a single Levallois core from the ‘Stoke Bone Bed’ (Ipswich, Suffolk) (Layard 1920). It is notable that the majority of the Levallois assemblages listed above include handaxes, yet these have been suggested to be derived from earlier deposits at the same localities and differentiated from the Levallois artefacts largely on the basis of condition (Scott 2006, 2011, White et al 2006).…”

The Early Middle Palaeolithic in Britain: archaeology, settlement history and human behaviour

“…8) This site lies on the south bank of the River Stour at about 30 m OD. Moir and Hopwood (1939) described a 14 m thick sequence of glacial, fluvial and colluvial deposits (Fig. 8).…”

“…This was seen by Moir as a palaeolandsurface. Statements by Moir and Hopwood (1939) and Wymer (1985) indicate that the artefacts from throughout Bed 3 are in mixed preservational state, but they disagree on whether the handaxes and Levallois material can be separated on this basis. A mixture of two or more assemblages is probably present within the gravel, with a more coherent assemblage in the stained horizon at its base.…”