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The Palaeolithic Contents of the Gravels at East Burnham, Bucks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

A. D. Lacaille
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Extract

As far back as 1880 the late Mr. W. Whitaker noted signs of several terraces on the left bank of the Thames, down-valley from Maidenhead, but he did not specifically mention the locality east and north-east of Taplow, Buckinghamshire (fig. 1). In this district, which includes the parishes of Burnham and Farnham Royal, terrace features resemble those discernible between Cookham and Bray Wick, Berkshire, where Messrs. Ll. Treacher and N. J. Osborne White believed that the Boyn Hill Terrace consisted of two divisions, the lower separated from the higher by a step of about 20 ft. According to them also, two pre-existing benches were buried by the aggradation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1939 , pp. 166 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1939

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References

page 166 note 1 Memoirs of the Geological Survey, ‘The Geology of London and the Thames Valley’, p. 392.

page 166 note 2 ‘Excursion to Maidenhead’ in Proc. Geol. Assoc. xxi, 198.

page 166 note 3 Ibid.

page 166 note 4 Geological Survey map (1 in. to the mile), sh. 255.

page 167 note 1 This is believed to equate with the terrace between the higher division of the Boyn Hill Terrace and the Taplow Terrace at Furze Platt, Maidenhead.

Between Cookham and Bray the Thames falls 12·11 ft. River-level at Boulter's Lock between these places, east by south of, and the nearest point on the Thames to, Furze Platt (and exactly midway between it and Lent Rise), is 77·84 ft. above O.D. At Boveney Lock; 3 miles farther down the river and 3¾ miles south of East Burnham, mean water-level is noted at 65·31 ft. above O.D.

page 168 note 1 It is not unlike that of the deposits, similarly named by the Geological Survey, at corresponding altitudes in the Boyn Hill district of Maidenhead. On the Berkshire side, however, such irregularities as undulations and ravinings are no longer clear because of town development. South, south-east, and south-west of Burnham Beeches most natural features remain unimpaired.

page 168 note 2 ‘The Pleistocene succession in the lower parts of the Thames Valley’ in Proc. Prehist. Soc. (N.S.), vol. ii, pt. i, pp. 71–2.

page 169 note 1 To the inquirer the workings may appear to bear anomalous designations. Messrs. N. H. Cooper's excavation, although nearer the Beeches, is known as the East Burnham Pit, while that of Messrs. John Deverill, Ltd. (the southward continuation of Mr. Pusey's long-worked-out undertaking), carried on some 250 yards farther to the south-east, is called the Burnham Beeches Pit. In this paper the distinction is made clear by referring to the gravel-pits by the contractors’ names.

As there exist some small pits in fine gravels at greater altitudes within the Burnham Beeches, it is perhaps advisable to refer to the deposits now considered as the ‘East Burnham Gravels’, although termed the ‘Burnham Beeches Gravels’ in some publications.

The deposits to the north, from which the East Burnham gravels are separated by bared Reading Beds, are mapped as part of the great stretch of Glacial Gravels; but the exposure of even horizontal layers, to which Dr. Oakley drew attention, suggests the desirability of inquiry into their exact origin. ‘Field Meeting at Taplow, Burnham and Iver, Bucks’, in Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xlviii, pt. 3, p. 277.

page 170 note 1 ‘De l'importance de la solifluxion dans l'étude des terrains quaternaires du Nord de la France et des pays voisins’ in Revue de géographie physique et de géologie dynamique (1934), vol. vii, fasc. 4, fig. 20, a and b, pp. 19–20Google Scholar.

page 170 note 2 Loc. cit., pp. 198–201.

page 172 note 1 The fact that so many diminutive but characteristic flakes and cores occur supports the contention that the anvil method of production could not have served in their case.

page 173 note 1 H. Breuil and L. Koslowski, ‘Études de stratigraphie paléolithique dans le Nord de la France, la Belgique et l'Angleterre’, in l'Anthropologie, t. xli, p. 478.

page 174 note 1 The nature of the flake-scars and bulbs of percussion appearing on most of the different St. Acheul artifacts points to treatment of the raw material by hammers of bone or hardwood.

page 174 note 2 Cores recovered at East Burnham, Lent Rise, etc., assignable to this stage, offer such scope for study that to describe the variants at this juncture would be a trespass on space.

page 175 note 1 Octobon, Commandant E., ‘Navettes. — Grattoirs à encoches symétriques et pièces qui les accompagnent dans les industries à quartzites des pays toulousains’ in Compte Rendu de la Onzième Session du Congrés Préhistorique de France, Périgueux, 1934, p. 206Google Scholar and pl. xi; also Lacaille, A. D., ‘Quartzites talliés de la région londonienne’ in Compte Rendu de la Douzième Session du Congrès Préhistorique de France, Toulouse et Foix, 1936, p. 622Google Scholar and fig. 4.

page 175 note 2 Ibid., p. 620, fig. 3.