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AAAHS diggers investigating ancient river channels at Sutton Courtenay |
Occlusal (grinding) surface of two 40,000 year old woolly mammoth teeth from Sutton Courtenay |
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AAAHS diggers investigating ancient river channels at Sutton Courtenay |
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Occlusal (grinding) surface of two 40,000 year old woolly mammoth teeth from Sutton Courtenay |
The gravel pits east of Sutton Courtenay village have yielded some considerably interesting and nationally important artefacts over the last 20 years. Members have paid numerous trips to the site and have accumulated many thousands of bones and several hundred stone tools. Four radiocarbon dates obtained on organic remains (mammoth and rodent bones and peat) have shown that the majority of these finds, which originated from the base of the gravels, are 40,000 years old.
Large mammals bones were identified by Bob Eeles and Kate Scott and include woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, red deer, giant deer (the famous ‘Irish elk’), reindeer, lion, hyaena and wolf. Smaller mammals (identified by Andy Currant of the Natural History Museum) include narrow-skulled vole, Norway lemming, Arctic lemming, a ground squirrel or souslik (Spermophilus sp.) and a large polecat. We also have natterjack toad (identified by Chris Gleed-Owen). The aquatic and terrestrial snails were extremely abundant and consist of 35 species including a few that are now extinct in Britain. These species lived during a period that experienced summers as warm as they are today although the ‘continental’ winters were longer and more severe. The landscape was mostly treeless with some dwarf willows and abundant grasses and herbs. Even older mammal remains have been recovered including the teeth of straight-tusked elephant and hippopotamus. These animals lived in our area 128,000 years ago during a full Interglacial when the climate would have been similar to that experienced presently in southern Europe. No people were present 128,000 years ago.
Stone tools consist mostly of ancient handaxes (around 350,000 years old) with a few more recent specimens dating to the same period as the mammoths, approximately 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals made these younger artefacts. One of these has been recognised as the only convincing example of a ‘classic’ leafpoint so far found in Britain. Such tools are much more commonly associated with Neanderthals in eastern Germany and Poland and ours may have been manuported to Britain by Neanderthals from this region. In common with the ‘classic’ leafpoint several of the other Neanderthal stone tools we recovered were made from a high-quality black flint that seems to have been imported from the Brandon area of Norfolk 150 km away as the crow flies but considerably further for Neanderthal pedestrians. Our local flint is very inferior to this black raw material, was frost-shattered, and would have been of no use at all for making stone tools.
The climate in Britain had deteriorated by 37,000 years ago when the returning extremely cold conditions proved unsuitable for Neanderthals and the animals they depended upon for food and materials. It was during this period that the gravels were deposited over the bones and stone tools, sealing them until exposed again during gravel extraction.
Although gravel extraction has slowed down at Sutton Courtenay we are still in the process of researching the site. Many bones, for example, still require identification and we have not even begun to examine the beetles, ostracods, fish and plant remains.
We are grateful to the Council for British Archaeology and the AAAHS for generously supporting the research at Sutton Courtenay.