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Visiting the Past: Finding and Understanding Britain's Archaeology

Visiting the Past: Finding and Understanding Britain's Archaeology

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Boxgrove - Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry in England in West Sussex

Submitted by coldrum on Sunday, 15 July 2007  Page Views: 15933

Multi-periodSite Name: Boxgrove Alternative Name: Eartham Pit
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 0.5 km away from the location you searched for.

County: West Sussex Type: Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 Nearest Village: Boxgrove
Map Ref: SU924086
Latitude: 50.869528N  Longitude: 0.688255W
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
1 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data 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.
no data 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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Andy B visited on 16th Aug 2007 Featured as part of BBC's History of Ancient Britain with Neil Oliver

SandyG have visited here

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Reconstruction drawing of Boxgrove panorama by Peter Dunn. Image supplied by English Heritage as part of Boxgrove press release. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Quarry in West Sussex. Boxgrove quarry, acquired by English Heritage. This is where the oldest human bones yet found in the UK were discovered in excavations in the 1980's and 90's. In 2020 an announcement was made that the site has also revealed the earliest bone tools found in Britain, dating to 500,000 years ago.

Note: Archaeologists say they've identified the earliest known bone tools in the European archaeological record. Bone tools found at the Boxgrove site in West Sussex, dating to 500,000 years ago.
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Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Boxgrove Palaeolithic site: excavation in progress Proposed site on the Tentative List of UK World Heritage nominations. Image copyright English Heritage, used with permission. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by SandyG : View of the deposits overlying the Palaeolithic layers. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by SandyG : Careful excavation of the Palaeolithic layer. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by SandyG : Excavations in 1995. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Boxgrove Palaeolithic site : archaeologists and the shin of Boxgrove Man Proposed site on the Tentative List of UK World Heritage nominations. Image credit English Heritage, used with permission.

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Matt Pope - assistant director of the Boxgrove Project. Image copyright English Heritage, used with permission.

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Mark Roberts - director of the Boxgrove Project. Image credit: English Heritage, used with permission.

Boxgrove
Boxgrove submitted by Andy B : Reconstruction drawing of Boxgrove Animals by Judith Dobie. Image credit: English Heritage, used with permission.

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 1.1km NE 50° Long Down Flint Mines* Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry (SU932093)
 1.2km NNW 341° Halnaker Hill* Causewayed Enclosure (SU920097)
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 4.5km NNE 31° Upwaltham Hill Tumuli* Round Barrow(s) (SU94681250)
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 4.8km WNW 285° Lavant Down Flint Mines Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry (SU877098)
 5.2km ENE 75° Prehistoric to Roman Field System Misc. Earthwork (SU97391005)
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 6.5km WSW 249° Graylingwell Earthwork* Misc. Earthwork (SU863062)
 6.5km NE 53° Barkhale* Causewayed Enclosure (SU976126)
 6.8km ENE 57° Barkhale Tumulus* Round Barrow(s) (SU980124)
 7.2km E 89° Late Prehistoric and Roman Field systems Misc. Earthwork (SU99640888)
 7.3km WSW 255° Brandy Hole Earthwork* Misc. Earthwork (SU854066)
 7.5km WSW 241° The Novium* Museum (SU8590604914)
 8.0km E 79° War Dyke and Prehistoric Enclosure Misc. Earthwork (TQ00251020)
 8.1km N 349° Heyshott Down Cross Dyke* Misc. Earthwork (SU9070416492)
 8.1km ENE 74° Cross Dyke, Whiteways Misc. Earthwork (TQ00201101)
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"Boxgrove" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Europe's Earliest Bone Tools Found in Britain by bat400 on Friday, 26 August 2022
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coldrum shares the following story from Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website.

Archaeologists say they've identified the earliest known bone tools in the European archaeological record. The implements come from the renowned Boxgrove site in West Sussex, which was excavated in the 1980s and 90s. The bone tools came from a horse that humans butchered at the site for its meat. Flakes of stone in piles around the animal suggest at least eight individuals were making large flint knives for the job. ...

There's nothing quite like Boxgrove elsewhere in Britain: during excavations, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of stone tools, along with animal bones, that dated to 500,000 years ago.

They were made by the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor for modern humans and Neanderthals. Researchers found a shin bone belonging to one of them - it's the oldest human bone known from Britain.



Project lead, Dr Matthew Pope, from UCL's Institute of Archaeology, said: "This was an exceptionally rare opportunity to examine a site pretty much as it had been left behind by an extinct population, after they had gathered to totally process the carcass of a dead horse on the edge of a coastal marshland.
"Incredibly, we've been able to get as close as we can to witnessing the minute-by-minute movement and behaviours of a single apparently tight-knit group of early humans: a community of people, young and old, working together in a co-operative and highly social way."
The researchers were able to reconstruct the precise type of stone tool that had been made from the chippings left at the site. However, the humans must have taken the tools with them - as they had not been recovered. ...
Dr Pope added that it was still unclear how the horse ended up in this landscape. "Horses are highly sociable animals and it's reasonable to assume it was part of a herd, either attracted to the foreshore for fresh water, or for seaweed or salt licks. For whatever reason, this horse - isolated from the herd - ends up dying there," Dr Pope told BBC News.
"Possibly it was hunted - though we have no proof of that - and it's sat right next to an intertidal creek. The tide was quite low so it's possible for the humans to get around it. But shortly after, a high tide comes in and starts to cover the site in fine, powdery silt and clay. It's so low energy that everything is left as it was when the hominins moved away from the site."
The horse provided more than just food. Analysis of the bones by Simon Parfitt, from the University College London (UCL) Institute of Archaeology, and Dr Silvia Bello, from London's Natural History Museum, found that several bones had been used as tools called re-touchers.
Simon Parfitt said: "These are some of the earliest non-stone tools found in the archaeological record of human evolution. They would have been essential for manufacturing the finely made flint knives found in the wider Boxgrove landscape."
Dr Bello added: "The finding provides evidence that early human cultures understood the properties of different organic materials and how tools could be made to improve the manufacture of other tools. She explained that "it provides further evidence that early human populations at Boxgrove were cognitively, social and culturally sophisticated".
The researchers believe other members of the group - which could have numbered 30 to 40 people - were nearby. They might have joined the hunting party to butcher the horse carcass.
This might explain how it was so completely torn apart: the Boxgrove humans even smashed up the bones to get at the marrow and liquid grease.

See more at BBC News, 12 Aug 2022.
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Boxgrove Man and Prehistoric Sussex, Worthing, Sunday 30th September by Andy B on Friday, 17 August 2007
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Including discussion of the Devil's Jumps, Chanctonbury Ring, Cissbury Ring and the Long Man of Wilmington.
Sydney Walter Centre Worthing

http://www.sussexwalksandtalks.co.uk/talks.htm
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