The Lower Palaeolithic Site at Red Barns, Portchester, Hampshire: Bifacial Technology, Raw Material Quality, and the Organisation of Archaic Behaviour

Abstract

The site at Red Barns was excavated in 1975, but the large lithic collection remained unstudied following preliminary examination. This paper reports on further analysis of the lithic material from the site, together with a reappraisal of the faunal remains and original mineralogical analyses, and the results of processing sediment samples from the 1975 excavation. An abundant molluscan assemblage was recovered from the deposits covering the main archaeological horizon, allowing climatic/environmental reconstruction and amino acid dating. The synthesis of these data indicates the site to be older than previously thought, dating to between 425,000 and 200,000 BP. Analysis of the lithic material has suggested that the site is an undisturbed palimpsest of flint tools and debitage. The poor, severely frost-fractured nature of the raw material used for knapping, together with the location of the site on a Chalk outcrop, have enabled investigation of some assumptions about the influences upon knapping technology of i) poor quality raw material and ii) local availability of flint fresh from Chalk bedrock. The persistent manufacture of finely worked plano-convex handaxes suggests that, even in an areawhere fresh Chalk flint must have been abundant, the immediately available poor quality flint source was not a bar to formation of an assemblage dominated by handaxe production. Secondly, the emphasis on carefully shaped pointed plano-convex handaxes suggests that this shape was both deliberately imposed and not dictated by a lack of local availability of flint fresh from the Chalk. Behaviour at the site was investigated by analysis of the organisation of the lithic production and it was demonstrated that, while some handaxes and flake-tools were abandoned at the site and some flake core reduction also took place there, the dominant pattern was for handaxes to be made at the site and then removed and abandoned elsewhere.

The Mental Template in Handaxe Manufacture: New Insights into Acheulean Lithic Technological Behavior at Boxgrove, Sussex, UK

“…So, it was contrary to the raw material hypothesis that pointed handaxes could not be transformed into ovates because of raw material limitations. Additionally, contrary to the reduction model, they showed the existence of refined and symmetrical pointed handaxes, showing intensive reduction (Wenban-Smith et al 2000), obviating the concept of pointed=crude, ovate=refined. The notion of the mental template enables the exploration of cognitive skillswhere such blanks were shaped to produce handaxes with similar morphologies.…”

“…Neither of these models of possible constraints considered some of the arguments related to cultural tradition (Roe 1968;Wenban-Smith et al 2000;Wenban-Smith 2004). The longstanding arguments proposing cultural tradition as the prime influence saw the final morphological characteristics of handaxes reflecting the mental template of the knappers and raw material was selected according to the mental template.…”

The Clactonian elephant butchery site at Southfleet Road, Ebbsfleet, UK

“…Even allowing for fluvial winnowing (Ashton et al, 2005), one would expect a fluvial deposit such as the Lower Gravel to contain some evidence of handaxe manufacture if any was taking place in the contemporary landscape; 3 investigations at Barnham (Wenban- Smith and Ashton, 1998) have shown that the raw material available to the knappers at the main Barnham Area I Clactonian horizon (the cobble layer) was perfectly suitable for handaxe manufacture. Furthermore, work at Red Barns (Wenban- Smith et al, 2000) has shown that the poor quality frost-fractured raw material at Red Barns was nonetheless used for a handaxedominated industry, even in an area of Chalk bedrock where fresher flint nodules were probably abundant nearby. These observations reduce the impact of raw material availability/ quality as an explanation for why handaxe-manufacturing humans should choose not to do so in certain places.…”

Frontiers and route‐ways from Europe: the Early Middle Palaeolithic of Britain

“…In addition, material from Hampshire and Dorset has been added from Davis (). Recently‐excavated sites have also been added, including Boxgrove (Roberts and Parfitt, ), High Lodge (Ashton et al ., ), Barnham (Ashton et al ., ), Beeches Pit (Gowlett et al ., ; Preece et al ., , ), Elveden (Ashton et al ., ), the Waechter excavations at Swanscombe (Conway et al ., ), Southfleet Road (Wenban‐Smith, ) and Red Barns (Wenban‐Smith et al ., ). As the TERPS database was originally based on the fluvial record and does not include caves or rockshelters, those of a Lower Palaeolithic or Early Middle Palaeolithic date have been added.…”