Miscellaneous Notes

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES DESTRUCTION OF RIOKSON'S PIT, SW.ANSCOMBE Rickson's pit was one of the classic exposures of the Boyn Hill terrace deposits in the Swanscombe district. Since the discovery in 1935-36 by Alvan T. Marston of the Swanscombe skull in the gravel 􀃤f the Barnfield pit, and its recognition as the second oldest human fossil yet found in Europe, the Pleistocene beds of this locality and their contained Stone Age industries have achieved an international reputa, tion. In March, 1954, an area of five acres of the Barnfield pit was presented by The Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Limited to the Nature Conservancy for preservation as a Geological Reserve. Half a mile east of the Barnfield pit there existed until lately a worked-out gravel pit bordering the east·side of the road from .Galley Hill to Springhead (National Grid Reference 609743). This pit is known in the literature of Palmolithic archreology as Rickson's pit or otherwise the Barracks pit. It was worked commercially for gravel and sand from about 1930 until 1934 after which it became overgrown and the exposures obscured. In 􀃥952 the A.P.C.M. cleared away almost the last traces of the beds overlying the chalk in this area with mechani 􀃦 cal excavators preparatory to 􀃧xtending their enormous chalk qua􀃨y which occupies much of the Ebbsfleet valley to the south-east. At the time of writing (July, 1955) this deep quarry has eaten away most of the site occupied by Rickson's pit and the rest will follow in the next few months. This may therefore be a suitable opportunity to summarize the archreological significance of the site and mention th􀃩 publications in which the evidence has been recorded in detail. •·, The lowest bed in Rickson's pit was unquestionably equivalent to the Lower Gravel of the well-known Barnfield section, and containe􀃪 prodigious quantities of Clactonian flakes and cores. r estimate as a result of some digging which I undertook in Rickson's pit that the artifacts occurred in the Lower Gravel at the average rate of one to every two cubit feet of gravel. At a higher level there was a stratum of current-bedded sand and gravel which formerly yielded numerous Acheulian ovate implements of a slightly later type than the poir)-ted hand-axes most commonly found in the Middle Gravel of the Barnfield pit. Pointed hand-axes have been obtained in Rickson's pit, however, from a horizon just above the shell bed covering the Lower Gravel. The beds here which may be correlated with the Barnfield Middle 216 MISCELLANEOus· NOTES Gravel, though in part of a slightly later age,1 have also produced ·flake implements of Olactonian III and early Levalloisian form, and from: the Upper Loam (or·Brickearth) J.P. T. Burdhell obtained Leva.Bois.' type cores.2 The following published accounts record archreological and geological data relating to Rickson's pit: Chandler, R. H., Proc. Geol. Assoc., XLIII (1932), Part 1, pp. 71-2. Dewey, H., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., 88 (1932), pp. 35-56. Burchell, J. P. T., Antiquaries Journal, XIV, No. 2 (1934), pp. 163-66. P. J. TESTER. _; 1 Report on the Swanscombe Skull, Jour. R. Anthr. Inst., LXVIII (19'38), p. 46. : Procs. Prehist. Soc. ID. Anglia, Vol. 6 (1931), p. 266. . •· Q; Home, R