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<< Our Photo Pages >> La Cotte de St Brelade - Cave or Rock Shelter in Channel Islands and Isle of Man in Jersey

Submitted by davidmorgan on Monday, 11 July 2022  Page Views: 17775

Natural PlacesSite Name: La Cotte de St Brelade Alternative Name: Lé Creux ès Fées
Country: Channel Islands and Isle of Man Island: Jersey Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: St Brelade
Latitude: 49.175525N  Longitude: 2.188405W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Andy B : La Cotte dé Saint Brélade, public domain image by Man vyi (Vote or comment on this photo)
La Cotte de St Brelade is a Paleolithic site of early habitation in St Brelade, Jersey. Cotte means "cave" in Jèrriais. Neanderthal man once lived here around 250,000 years ago - the earliest record of the occupation of the Channel Islands by a human ancestor. The deposits found here contain hundreds and thousands of Neanderthal stone tools, together with their animal prey which included herd animals like horse, mammoth, and reindeer.

Over the 190,000 years when Neanderthals used la Cotte, the surrounding landscape changed dramatically. At that time, with sea levels slightly below those at present, Jersey was part of Normandy, a peninsula jutting out from the coast. It was not until after the last Ice Age that the sea eroded the coastline, separating first Guernsey, then Jersey and finally the Ecréhous from the mainland.

A close study of mammoth bone heaps casts doubt on the romantic notion of Neanderthal hunters driving herds over cliffs in mass kills. Updates in the comments.
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La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by simonm : View from the top. There is a good exhibit on this in the Jersey Museum, and describes how large animals were driven off this cliff to be killed and butchered. At the time, it would have been a hill looking over a plain towards France. (Vote or comment on this photo)

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Dodomad : This small core of flint is from the earliest period of Neanderthal habitation identified at La Cotte. It could date back as far as 240,000 years ago. This method, known as the Levallois technique, was used regularly later periods here but much rarer in earlier times. Photo Credit: Jersey Heritage (Vote or comment on this photo)

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Dodomad : Letty Ingrey and Dr Sarah M Duffy surveying in the granite architecture of the West Ravine at LaCotte. Having survey control means we can use the unchanging solid rick to tie into previous excavations. Photo credit: Dr Matt Pope (Vote or comment on this photo)

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Dodomad : Coming to the end of the second week at La Cotte excavations 2023. Reduction now to 22.5m at the front of the bluff. Bright, undisturbed Ice Age deposits and the shape of the collapsed southern cave beginning to show. Photo Credit Dr Matt Pope (Vote or comment on this photo)

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Dodomad : View from the excavation site, 2023 Photo Credit Dr Matt Pope

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by Dodomad : A view from the top of LaCotte over the hunting ground, exposed by the low tide, described in our 2015 paper. A new view from La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey(See comment from main article for link) Did Neanderthal hunters drive mammoth herds over cliffs in mass kills? Photo Credit Dr Matt Pope

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by attlebax : La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey. Picture taken October 2014 from Beauport.

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Annotated floor plan of the cave, from "Prehistoric Times...." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Key to vertical section plan of the cave, from "Prehistoric Times...." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Vertical section of the cave, from "Prehistoric Times...." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Human teeth from the cave from "Prehistoric Times..." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Flints from the cave from "Prehistoric Times..." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature : Photo of the cave from "Prehistoric Times..." via archive.org

La Cotte de St Brelade
La Cotte de St Brelade submitted by durhamnature

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"La Cotte de St Brelade" | Login/Create an Account | 8 News and Comments
  
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The Story of La Cotte by Andy B on Tuesday, 08 August 2023
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Through a fissure in the rock face, archaeologists found a time capsule, a paleolithic (or early Stone Age) site that contains 250,000 years of evidence of human life in Jersey

At La Cotte de St Brelade (La Cotte) in Jersey, appearances are deceptive. It looks to be a rocky, steep outcrop with its broad feet planted in the sea. But, through a fissure in the rock face, archaeologists found a time capsule, a paleolithic (or early Stone Age) site that contains 250,000 years of evidence of human life in Jersey. Because of the shape of the rock, deposits and sediment were protected, leaving great stratigraphy (layers of geological material) behind for archaeologists to discover.
Read more at: https://www.jerseyheritage.org/history/la-cotte/
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A new view from La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey by Andy B on Tuesday, 08 August 2023
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Published 2015 Beccy Scott, Martin Bates, Richard Bates, Chantal Conneller, Matt Pope, Andrew Shaw and Geoff Smith.
Did Neanderthal hunters drive mammoth herds over cliffs in mass kills? Excavations at La Cotte de St Brelade in the 1960s and 1970s uncovered heaps of mammoth bones, interpreted as evidence of intentional hunting drives. New study of this Middle Palaeolithic coastal site, however, indicates a very different landscape to the featureless coastal plain that was previously envisaged. Reconsideration of the bone heaps themselves further undermines the ‘mass kill’ hypothesis, suggesting that these were simply the final accumulations of bone at the site, undisturbed and preserved in situ when the return to a cold climate blanketed them in wind-blown loess.
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 339 , March 2014 , pp. 13 - 29
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00050195
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Tour of La Cotte de St Brelade with Dr Matt Pope, Tuesday 19 July 2022 by Andy B on Sunday, 10 July 2022
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La Cotte de St Brelade and exploring the Neanderthal landscapes of the English Channel

The dramatic granite headland of La Cotte de St Brelade is a key site for understanding human origins. A series of ravines preserve a deep sequence of Ice Age sediment which, over the past 150 years has produced over 200,000 stone artefacts and large quantities of preserved large mammal remains as well as a key long-term record of climate and environmental change in the region. Recently a team lead by Dr Matt Pope have returned to the site, working with Jersey Heritage to protect the site from further erosion and to continue research excavation at the site. Join Matt on this tour to learn about this work and the recent revelation that a human fossil from the site may represent a population with shared Neanderthal and Homo sapiens ancestry.

Location: La Cotte de St Brelade, Ouaisne Slip, Quaisne, St Brelade, Jersey, Channel Islands, JE3 8AN, United Kingdom

Meet on Ouaisne slip at 5.30pm, Tue, 19 July

Duration of event:Two hours
https://www.archaeologyuk.org/festival/festival-event-listing/la-cotte-de-st-brelade-and-exploring-the-neanderthal-landscapes-of-the-english-channel.html

#FestivalofArchaeology 2022
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Late Neanderthal occupation in North-West Europe - La Cotte de Saint Brelade by Andy B on Thursday, 26 January 2017
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Late Neanderthal occupation in North-West Europe: rediscovery, investigation and dating of a last glacial sediment sequence at the site of La Cotte de Saint Brelade, Jersey
Martin Bates, Matthew Pope, Andrew Shaw, Beccy Scott and Jean-Luc Schwenninger

In 2011, a programme of field research was undertaken to effect the stabilization of an unstable section in the West Ravine at the key Neanderthal occupation site of La Cotte de St Brelade on the Channel Island of Jersey. As part of this essential remedial work the threatened section was analysed to characterize its archaeological and palaeoenvironmental potential as well provide optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates.

https://www.academia.edu/30152666/Late_Neanderthal_occupation_in_North_
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Jersey: Ice Age Island by Andy B on Monday, 03 February 2014
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The dramatic landscape of Jersey, its coastline and inland landscape of valleys and fields, has been shaped by long time processes of climate change. The island has an exceptional geological record for the Ice Age documenting over a quarter of a million years of successive changes in the planet’s climate, rising and falling sea levels as well as evidence for the humans and animals which were able to survive in northern Europe during this time.

Ice Age Island is a three year project to explore Jersey’s deep prehistoric past, from exploration of the island caves, through the archaeological excavation of hunter gather camps preserved in the island’s interior, we aim to discover why this remarkable landmass attracted Neanderthal and modern humans during the deep past.

http://www.jerseyheritage.org/ice-age-island

Key sites

La Cotte de St.Brelade: Ice age sediments began accumulating within a jagged fissure in the rocky cliffs of the modern south coast of Jersey between at least 220 000 and 30 000 years ago.

Les Varines: Located above St.Helier at the head of a dry valley dropping towards the sea, Les Varines was occupied by Magdalenian hunters around 18 000 years ago, immediately after the last glacial period.

Le Canal du Squez: lies within the Les Landes SSI, on the edge of a shallow, hanging valley which would have provided a source of fresh water.

http://www.jerseyheritage.org/ice-age-island/key-sites
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Jersey's place in Neanderthal history revealed in study by bat400 on Tuesday, 22 October 2013
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Scientists working on an archaeological dig in St Brelade said teeth found at La Cotte suggest Jersey was one of the last places Neanderthals lived.

The team of British archaeologists have unearthed items which show the presence of Stone Age hunters at the headland.

They said the finds were helping scientists understand more about the early relatives of modern humans.

A large portion of the site contains sediments dating to the last Ice Age, preserving 250,000 years of climate change and archaeological evidence.
The site, which has produced more Neanderthal stone tools than the rest of the British Isles put together, contains the only known late Neanderthal remains from North West Europe.

Dr Matt Pope of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, who helped lead the research, said: "In terms of the volume of sediment, archaeological richness and depth of time, there is nothing else like it known in the British Isles.

"Given that we thought these deposits had been removed entirely by previous researchers, finding that so much still remains is as exciting as discovering a new site."

The team dated sediments at the site using a technique called optically stimulated luminesce, which measures the last time sand grains were exposed to sunlight.

Dr Pope said the results showed that part of the sequence of sediments dates between 100,000 and 47,000 years old, indicating that Neanderthal teeth which were discovered at the site in 1910 were younger than previously thought, and "probably belonged to one of the last Neanderthals to live in the region".

Professor Clive Gamble, from the University of Southampton and archaeology member of the Natural Environment Research Council, said: "Archaeologists need dates like an artist needs paint. Without a sound chronology the power of our other techniques for probing the past are severely restricted.

"This is a great step forward on what looks like being a fascinating journey."

Thanks to rogeralbin for the link. For more, see http://www.bbc.co.uk
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Jersey’s Ice Age heritage by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 05 October 2011
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A UK archaeological research team are returning to Jersey this October to undertake scientific analysis at the Neanderthal site of La Cotte de St Brelade.

The team, funded through a National Environment Research Council (NERC) Urgency Award, are currently mobilising to undertake sampling and stabilisation work ahead of winter. The site and the team’s research featured in Digging For Britain, on BBC2.

Dr Matt Pope, a Senior Research fellow at the institute of Archaeology, UCL, is coordinating the team.

Dr Pope said, “The NERC award has provided a chance to study and stabilise an area of the site which had remained hidden under scree for at least 60 years. During last summer our team established this section of the site was at threat from erosion. It’s unlikely that anyone alive has seen these deposits and we had pretty much thought they were lost to modern scientific study. Through this NERC-funded work, we now have an opportunity to show what targeted science-based archaeology can do to enhance our understanding of the deep past.”

The NERC award has provided a chance to study and stabilise an area of the site which had remained hidden under scree for at least 60 years

This work forms the latest stage in a project aimed at understanding long term human activity and climate change through the exceptional archaeological record of Jersey. It is run through a consortia of British Institutions including the Universities of Southampton, The British Museum, The University of Wales and university of Manchester in addition to UCL. The project is bringing cutting edge scientific archaeological techniques and surgical fieldwork approaches to understand how different species of human responded to sea level change and cycle of global warming and cooling during the Ice Age. Over the past 2 years it has reinvestigated known ice age sites and discovered new locations for study, it has also began to map the sea floor in the hunt for caves and deposits on the sea bed.
An important aspect of the QAEJ project is the mapping of the existing preservation state of the La Cotte site. This surveying work started in the summer of 2010 under the direction of Dr. James Cole from the University of Southampton. Image: QAEJ)

An important aspect of the QAEJ project is the mapping of the existing preservation state of the La Cotte site. This surveying work started in the summer of 2010 under the direction of Dr. James Cole from the University of Southampton. Image: QAEJ

La Cotte de St Brelade forms a major part of this project, providing an exceptional record of Neanderthal occupation over a time span in excess of 200,000 years. During his time Neanderthal hunters were responding to massive changes in their local environment and left a rich record of their hunting and tool use activities as well as evidence for the controlled use of fire. This exceptional, internationally important site is managed by the Société Jersiaise.

Dr John Clarke, president of the Société said: “I am delighted that the Société Jersiaise, as owner of La Cotte de St Brelade, is engaging with the research consortium led by Dr Matt Pope to raise awareness of the importance of the site’s archaeology. Initially stabilisation measures must be put place, facilitated in part by a NERC Urgency Award. In future, we look forward to developing the project to maximise the contribution that Le Cotte archaeology can make to our knowledge of human development. The showing of “Digging for Britain” is an excellent opportunity to communicate what this site has to offer and to bring the fascination of archaeology and the Neanderthal period to a wider audience.”

Matt and his team are a new generation of archaeologists who bring with them a vast range of scientific techniques and skills that the early excavators at La Cotte could never have imagined.

This phase of scientific recovery and stabilisation form the first part of

Read the rest of this post...
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Neanderthal survival story revealed in Jersey caves by davidmorgan on Friday, 30 September 2011
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New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.

Neanderthals survived in Europe through a number of ice ages and died out only about 30,000 years ago.

The site at La Cotte de St Brelade reveals a near-continuous use of the cave site spanning over a quarter of a million years, suggesting a considerable success story in adapting to a changing climate and landscape, prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens.

The La Cotte ravine has revealed the most prolific collection of early Neanderthal technology in North West Europe, including over 250,000 stone tools. These include stones with sharpened edges that could be used to cut or chop, known as hand axes.

"Archaeologists have developed new ways of looking at stone tools since La Cotte de St Brelade was excavated in the 1970s," says Dr Beccy Scott from the British Museum and the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project.

"We have been using these techniques to look at how Neanderthals were making and using the tools they left at La Cotte."

The huge amounts of carefully manufactured tools show just how technologically skilled early Neanderthal groups were.

"The artefacts from the site don't just tell us about what people were doing at the site itself, but throughout the landscapes that are now underneath the channel," continues Dr Scott.
La Cotte de St Brelade La Cotte is fundamental to our understanding of Neanderthal behavioural development

"Neanderthals were travelling to Jersey already equipped with good quality flint tools, then reworking them, very, very carefully so as not to waste anything. They were extremely good at recycling."

La Cotte's collapsed cave system contains intact ice age sediments spanning a quarter of a million years, revealing a detailed sequence of Neanderthal occupation and occasional abandonment, against a background of changing climate.

"The site is the most exceptional long-term record of Neanderthal behaviour in North West Europe," says Dr Matt Pope from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.

"At La Cotte, we get to see far more than a glimpse of their behaviour, we get to see generation upon generation of Neanderthals returning to the same place under lots of different environmental conditions."

Jersey at this time was linked to mainland Europe and La Cotte would have been a sheltered cave, allowing occupation.

Neanderthals abandoned the site during the coldest, glacial phases, when much of Britain was frozen.

Understanding how they reacted to the onset of these cold periods will allow archaeologists a greater insight into the limits of Neanderthal tolerances.

The site has been the focus of archaeological research for over 100 years and scientists believe more discoveries are yet to be made.

"We are also starting to look beyond the site and into the waters of the bay with the purpose of attempting to find new sites preserved on the sea bed," says Dr Martin Bates from the University of Wales, Trinity St Davids.

"We know from work around the Cotentin (peninsula in Normandy) that such sites exist and if we were lucky enough to find similar sites around Jersey, it would add significantly to our understanding of the Neanderthals and their landscape."

The story of this excavation and its finds will be featured in the BBC2 series Digging for Britain in early September. The Jersey research was also the subject of a BBC Radio 4 documentary earlier this month.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14677434

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