The Palaeoliths from the Gravels of the Lower Boyn Hill Terrace around Maidenhead

A. D. Lacaille

doi:10.1017/S0003581500009707

The Palaeoliths from the Gravels of the Lower Boyn Hill Terrace around Maidenhead

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012

A. D. Lacaille

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The author, having on 10th November 1938 laid before the Society a paper on the Palaeolithic contents of the higher part of the Boyn Hill Terrace between 160 and 200 ft. O.D., as represented at East Burnham, Bucks, now desires to discuss the archaeology of the lower division. As researches have also been conducted on the Berkshire side of the Thames, the present record includes a summary of discoveries made on both banks.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1940 , pp. 245 - 271

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500009707 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1940

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^{page 245 note 1} ‘The Palaeolithic contents of the gravels at East Burnham, Bucks.’ in Antiq. Journ. xix, 166–81.

^{page 245 note 2} Ibid. 166–8.

^{page 245 note 3} Geological Survey map (1 inch to the mile), sheet 255.

^{page 245 note 4} On the map, fig. 1, the gravels on both banks indicated by small open circles are shown as ‘Glacial Gravel’ in accordance with the maps published by H.M. Survey, and with that contained in the paper on the East Burnham palaeoliths. However, the appearance of the gravels in different exposures in the tracts so mapped is such that cartographical revision is necessary, the more so since Dr. S. W. Wooldridge's recent classification has been made available.—‘The glaciation of the London basin and the evolution of the Lower Thames drainage system’, in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1938), xciv, pt. 4, pp. 627–67. It is hoped that archaeological evidence will be forthcoming in support of this most important communication.

^{page 247 note 1} Since Furze Platt was first referred to in scientific papers dealing with the region it has frequently been mentioned. Because of this publicity, the archaeological importance of its deposits, and its central position, Furze Platt serves as a convenient datum for survey and comparisons.

^{page 247 note 2} Between Cookham and Bray the Thames falls 12·11 ft. Normal river level at Boulter's Lock, east by north of, and the nearest point on the Thames to, Furze Platt (and exactly midway between it and Lent Rise), is at 77·84 ft. above O.D.

^{page 247 note 3} Geological Survey map (1 inch to. the mile), sheet 269. A spread of gravel, whose surface attains an altitude of 169·4 ft. above O.D., between the Cannoncourt Farm and Boyn Hill proper levels, and mapped by the Geological Survey as belonging to the Boyn Hill stage, has been excavated extensively in two pits adjoining Belmont Park Road, Maidenhead. The disturbed state of the gravel and the angular, shattered, and much abraded elements of which they are composed point to conditions of deposition different from those responsible for the laying down of the river gravels whose archaeological contents are now examined. Supervision of the workings, although constant, has only been rewarded by the discovery of a few Abbeville artifacts and very poor flakes of early Clacton facies, the features of all well nigh obliterated. As the precise nature of these gravels, differing so from those of the lower and higher divisions of the Boyn Hill Terrace, has not yet been determined, it is considered advisable to indicate the patch on the map (fig. 1) according to the official designation. Dr. K. P. Oakley has suggested to me that this spread may possibly be referable to the Iver stage.

^{page 248 note 1} e.g. W. B. Wright, The Quaternary Ice Age (1937 edition), p. 126.

^{page 248 note 2} Ll. Treacher, ‘Palaeolithic Man in East Berks’, in Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journ., vol. ii, no. 1 (April 1896), pp. 16–18Google Scholar.

^{page 249 note 1} Infra, p. 257.

^{page 249 note 2} ‘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, vol. vii, fasc. 4, fig. 21.

^{page 249 note 3} Antiq. Journ. xvi, 425.

^{page 249 note 4} Loc. cit.

^{page 250 note 1} It may be noted that Breuil considers that some fine unstratified gravel, observed by him in the higher part of the fluviatile layers here, is attributable to a very cold period and assignable to the middle of the Mindel-Riss interglacial.—Op. cit., fig. 22 a, pp. 21–2.

^{page 250 note 2} ‘Excursion to Maidenhead’, in Proc. Geol. Assoc. xxi, 201.

^{page 251 note 1} Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journ., vol. ii, no. 1 (April 1896), p. 18.

^{page 251 note 2} Letters to the author, dated Edinburgh, 17th May and 13th September 1938.

^{page 251 note 3} e.g. at Boyn Hill; Proc. Geol. Assoc. xxi, 198.

^{page 252 note 1} e.g. at Cookham Rise, Cannoncourt Farm (Furze Platt) lower pit, Maidenhead Cemetery, All Saints Avenue (Maidenhead); Proc. Geol. Assoc., xxi, p. 199.

^{page 252 note 2} Antiq. Journ. xix, 175.

^{page 253 note 1} Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journ., vol. ii, no. 1 (April 1896), p. 17.

^{page 254 note 1} Loc. cit.

^{page 254 note 2} ‘Le Clactonien’, in Préhistoire, t. i, fasc. ii, fig. 10, nos. 1—4 and pp. 153—4.

^{page 255 note 1} H. Dewey in Geol. Mag., 1919, pl. II, figs. 2, 3, 5, and 6; also K. P. Oakley in Proc. Prehist. Soc. (1937), N.S., vol. iii, pt. 2, pp. 240–1.

^{page 256 note 1} These are varied enough to offer scope for study in conjunction with the cores of the different cultures represented in the gravels.

^{page 257 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xix, 173, and pl. xxviii.

^{page 258 note 1} Ant. Journ. xix, 179, and pl. XL, no. 19.

^{page 259 note 1} It is intended to make a closer study of the various cores in conjunction with the flakes with a view to determining the salient differentiating characters.

^{page 260 note 1} J. P. T. Burchell, ‘The Middle Mousterian Culture and its relation to the Coombe Rock of Post-Early Mousterian Times’, in Antiq. Journ. xiv, 33–9.

^{page 260 note 2} A. D. Lacaille, ‘The Palaeolithic sequence at Iver, Bucks’, in Antiq. Journ. xvi, 429–30.

^{page 260 note 3} W. B. R. King, and K. P. Oakley, ‘The Pleistocene succession in the lower parts of the Thames Valley’, in Proc. Prehist. Soc. (1936), N.S., vol. ii, pt. i, p. 72.

^{page 260 note 4} Antiq. Journ. xix, 170–1 and 174–5.

^{page 261 note 1} ‘Pleistocene stratigraphy of the Breckland’, Nature, cxliii, 822, 13 May, 1939. The Palaeolithic sequence established by Mr. Paterson in East Anglia for the aggraded layers resting between solifluxion deposits is closely paralleled by the archaeological contents of the lower Boyn Hill Terrace gravels.

^{page 261 note 2} ‘Le Paléolithique ancien en Europe occidentale et sa chronologie’, in Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française (1932), t. xxix, 571.

^{page 261 note 3} ‘Études de stratigraphie paléolithique dans le Nord de la France, la Belgique et l'Angleterre’, in L'Anthropologie, t. xliv, 263–6.

^{page 261 note 4} Cf. Clacton cores referred to by K. P. Oakley and Mary Leakey in ‘Report on excavations at Jaywick Sands, Essex (1934)’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. (1937), N.S., vol. iii, pt. 2, p. 232 and fig. 5, no. 5; and ibid., p. 242.

^{page 262 note 1} Supra, p. 249.

^{page 263 note 1} Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française (1932), t. xxix, p. 573.

^{page 263 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc. (1936), N.S., vol. ii, pt. i, pp. 59 and 71–2.

^{page 263 note 3} Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. (1938), lxviii, pp. 44 and 56.

^{page 263 note 4} Supra, p. 258, and pl. XLVIII, no. 37.

^{page 263 note 5} Cf. H. Dewey, The Presidential Address for 1930, ‘Palaeolithic Thames Deposits’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. East Anglia, vol. vi, pt. iii, p. 150.

^{page 263 note 6} Revue de géographie physique et de géologie dynamique, vol. vii, fasc. 4, fig. 20, a and b, pp. 19–20.

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The Palaeoliths from the Gravels of the Lower Boyn Hill Terrace around Maidenhead

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