Twisted Ovate Palaeolithic Handaxes and a recent surface find in Kent
By Frank Beresford
Twisted Ovate Palaeolithic handaxes are comparatively rare. They are defined not by the outline shape of the tool but by the profile of the four edges, which all display strong ogee (S or Z shaped) curves. This paper describes a twisted ovate Palaeolithic handaxe recently found in Mereworth Woods in Kent. It places it in the broader context of earlier finds of twisted ovate Palaeolithic handaxes in North West Kent and the surrounding area south of the Thames. It then presents the implications of recent research for all of these finds.
A small ovate handaxe with a twisted profile (Fig 1) was recently found near Mereworth, east of
Mereworth Woods (circa TQ 6597 5558 OD 115m.) The handaxe measures 65 mm in length and is 44.5 mm in maximum breadth. It is 20.5 mm thick and weighs 60 gm. It is unrolled and is finely worked with a circumferential cutting edge with working of the butt and tip ends and a clear twisted profile on both edges. There is a small ancient break at the tip end, and the working edges exhibit use wear and subsequent damage. It has a blue-white patina on both faces.
At the place where the Mereworth Woods handaxe was found, both superficial deposits and bedrock geology are mapped by the British Geological Survey – the handaxe was derived from the superficial deposits known as Head. These sedimentary deposits were produced during the Pleistocene or Quaternary Period by processes of weathering and mass movement breaking down in situ rock – in particular by the action of water or periglacial ice. They are formed of disintegrated or eroded coarse to fine-grained materials that accumulate in down- slope layers and fans. At the findspot, they overlie bedrock geology of the Hythe Formation – sandstone and limestone from the Cretaceous Period.
AN OGEE cURvE
John Evans (1872, 520) was the first writer to mention ovate handaxes with a twisted profile. He described the side edges as ‘not in one plane but forming a sort of ogee curve.’ The ogee curve is a double Z or S-shaped curvature, the combination of two semi-circular curves or arcs that, as a result of a point of inflection from
Above
Figs 1a–1d: Both faces and the two longer twisted edges of the small ovate handaxe with a twisted profile found near Mereworth. Both edges exhibit use wear and later damage, but this does not obscure the marked z-twist in both cases.
HOw wERE OvATE HANdAxES wITH A TwISTEd PROFILE MAdE?
The first description and explanation of small ovate handaxes with a circumferential cutting edge and a twisted profile appeared eleven years later in Archaeologia Cantiana when Flaxman C.J. Spurrell suggested a method to make the twisted edge and its implications for handedness (Spurrell 1883). In a footnote to his paper, which was the first to describe Palaeolithic material found in West Kent – just 24 years after the antiquity of such material had been established – he wrote:
‘The shape of these implements, as of those like them from Hayes, varies with the size; the smaller and middle- sized ones, when viewed edgeways, usually present a curve like that shewn near fig. 8 on the Plate (Fig 3); and when viewed from the butt end, one like the horizontal curve. When viewed on the side, the chipping forms two faces, with a dividing line or ridge running diagonally across from the right at the butt upwards towards the left.
Left, top
Fig 2: A small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile forming an ogee curve (right) from Hoxne, Suffolk. (Evans 1972, 520 Figure 450).
Left, bottom
Fig 3: A small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile (right) and the side profile ogee curve (centre) and the butt profile ogee curve (below) from Dunk’s Green near Ightham found by Benjamin Harrison two feet deep at 45 m O.D. – as illustrated by Spurrell in 1883
Above, right
Fig 4: The Twisted Handaxe Knapping Schema A: A diagram showing the conceptual pattern of inflection points and the edge configuration of a twisted handaxe, describing a z-twist (redrawn after Gallotti et al. 2010 in White et al. 2019, Fig 2.)
Occasionally, however, the curves and ridges are reversed or appear as if seen through the paper from the other side …….it shews also that the implement was chipped on one side, then turned over, with the same end toward the workman, and worked on that. Presuming that the majority were the work of the right hand in flaking, the rarer kind may have been that of the left, or of right and of left-handed men’
Recently Mark White has proposed that the knapping technique that produces the distinctive characteristics of a circumferential cutting edge and a twisted profile exhibited by these handaxes is based on conceptually dividing the ovate into four quadrants or arcs (Fig 4)
The knapper then worked each quadrant of the axe in turn (Fig 5). Each quadrant was moved to become the ‘active zone’ by a series of inversions and rotations, which could be varied. The key to obtaining the twisted profile was differential reduction along the diagonal plane of each face. Although the twist could have been imposed at any stage of shaping and finishing the ovate, it is observed that in many cases, it is the result of the final blows (White 1998, 99, 20, White et al. 2019, 64)
OTHER EARLy FINdS
Spurrell based much of his analysis on the small ovate handaxes with twisted profiles that Benjamin Harrison had found. Harrison had found them at sites close to the valley of the River Shode or its subsidiary streams (Fig 6). Spurrell noted that the small ovate handaxes with twisted profiles were especially common near Bewley and the Bewley Valley and on both sides of the Basted Valley. He also noted one from Home Farm Puttenden, which was less worn than the one from Dunk’s Green. These sites are west of the place where the Mereworth handaxe was found, about three miles east of the River Shode. The River Shode, now known as the Bourne, is a short west bank tributary of the River Medway.
Above
Fig 5: The Twisted Handaxe Knapping Schema B: The series of rotations and inversions employed in the ‘Classic Twisted Strategy’ (White 1998, 100): 1: the first quarter is knapped; 2: the piece is turned over through the long axis, presenting the opposite margin and other face for knapping. This quarter is knapped; 3: the piece is rotated 180°, presenting the quarter diagonally opposite 2 for knapping; 4: the handaxe is inverted through the long axis once more, offering the final quarter for knapping. Each quarter is knapped in the opposite direction to that adjacent to it and in the same direction as that diagonally opposite it (from White et al. 2019, Fig 2)
Left
Fig 6: Map of the Ightham to Mereworth Area circa 1906 (from Harrison E., 1928) showing the River Shode, the Mereworth twisted ovate handaxe find site (1.), and Harrison’s twisted ovate handaxe find sites mentioned by Spurrell at Basted (2); Bewley (Buley) Valley (3);
Dunk’s Green (4); and Puttenden (5.)
It rises in the parish of Ightham, Kent. It flows in a generally southeasterly direction through the parishes of Borough Green, Platt, Plaxtol, West Peckham, Hadlow, and East Peckham, where it joins the River Medway.
The dimensions of the Dunks Green handaxe (Fig 3) were 70 x 55 x 20 mm. Spurrell also illustrated an example found at Buley (Fig 7) and wrote, ‘This differs from the last only in having the tip formed as a straight, bluntly cutting edge.’ Its dimensions were 65 x 48 x 20 mm. Its blunted tip is comparable to the tip on the Mereworth Handaxe.
Spurrell also noted that another small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile had been found near the Medway at Aylesford. It was ‘found in situ by A. Hickmott’ at 18 m O.D. This example had lost all chipping marks by river wear and was stained a deep olive-brown. Arthur Hickmott, one of Harrison’s young scientific pupils, retrieved this small ovate handaxe on 28th May 1881 from ‘a small outlier consisting of several feet of river drift’ at the top of ‘a gault clay pit.’ While ‘examining the exposed face of the gravel, he saw a brown palaeolith in situ in the drift’ (Harrison E, 1928, 100.)
Finally, Spurrell illustrated another small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile (Fig 8) found by George Clinch in Church Field, West Wickham, at 100 m
O.D. in a dry side valley formed initially by the River Ravensbourne, although he located it in Hayes. Clinch gave this handaxe to Spurrell. Spurrell noted that it ‘has been so much used at the tip as to have worn off more than one inch, having been nearly the size of fig.
8.’ (Fig 7). Its dimensions were 45 x 53 x 23mm.
Benjamin Harrison continued to note ovate handaxes with a twisted profile when he found them. He was a regular correspondent with John Evans for 37 years, starting in 1871. Writing to John Evans on 27th March 1884, he noted ‘165 is the fourth ‘ogee curve’ implement from Bewley’ (Harrison E, 1928, 105.) He subsequently lent or gave one of these to Evans, who illustrated it in the second edition of his book (Fig
9). It was almost circular with dimensions 96 x 87 x 31 mm. Harrison was puzzled by the utility of these ovate handaxes, writing: ‘we really do not know how
Right
Fig 7: A small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile from Buley (Bewley) found by Benjamin Harrison at 125 m
O.D. – as illustrated by Spurrell in 1883.]
Below
Fig 8: A small, ovate handaxe with a twisted profile found in Church Field, West Wickham, as illustrated by Spurrell in 1883 (top) and his artwork for this handaxe (bottom)
kENT ASSEMbLAGES wITH SIGNIFIcANT PROPORTIONS OF TwISTEd OvATE HANdAxES
The small ovate handaxe with a circumferential cutting edge and a twisted profile occur in low or very low frequencies in many British handaxe assemblages.
However, some assemblages have major proportions of twisted ovate handaxes. In Kent, about 25 miles north of Mereworth and Ightham, such small ovate handaxes with twisted profiles comprise a distinctive element of all the Dartford Heath Palaeolithic assemblages found in the Wansun Loam at Wansun Pit (Fig 10, left), Bowman’s Lodge (Fig 10, centre) and Pearson’s Pit (Fig 10, right) and also of the Swanscombe Palaeolithic assemblages in the upper gravel at Rickson’s Pit, in the stony loam at
Dierden’s Pit and in the upper loams at Barnfield Pit (White 1998, 100; White et al. 2019, 66; Beresford 2018, 12).
SURREy ASSEMbLAGES wITH SIGNIFIcANT PROPORTIONS OF TwISTEd OvATE HANdAxES
Just over the Kent border and just ten miles to the west of Ightham along the Vale of Holmesdale, another significant occurrence of twisted ovate handaxe is found at Limpsfield, Surrey (Field et al. 1999; Bridgland 2003.)
The site is very similar to where the ovate handaxes in the Ightham area were found. It is on gravel on the interfluve between the source of the Darent to the north and the Eden–Medway to the south. Between 1883 and 1906, about 500 handaxes were found by A.M. Bell.
They were a surface assemblage exposed by a deep ploughing of terrace gravels 0.6 m below the surface at approximately 150 m O.D. The British Museum also has seven ovate handaxes with twisted profiles from Limpsfield found by Kitchen, a local collector (Fig 11). A few twisted ovate handaxes were also recovered in the 1930s from
Above
Fig 10: Three small ovate handaxes with twisted profiles from Dartford Heath sites – each with a face view and a profile view: Left: Wansun Pit; Centre: Bowman’s Lodge Pit; Right: Pearson’s Pit.
Above
Fig 9: A further small ovate handaxe with a twisted profile from Bewley (Buley) found by Benjamin Harrison (Evans 1897, 609, fig 456a)
Gravel Terrace B in Stoneyfield Pit near Farnham, Surrey, which is 45 miles to the west of Limpsfield (Oakley 1939; Bridgland & White 2018; see Fig 12).
wHEN wERE THEy MAdE?
No dating evidence is currently available for the superficial deposits or Head at Mereworth Wood or for the deposits in which the Ightham area ovate axes were found. However, it has recently been established that assemblages with a significant number of twisted ovate handaxes are found in different regions of Britain only in different substages of MIS 11 (White et al. 2019, 71.) MIS 11 is the interglacial period that occurred between 430,000 and 360,000 years before present, and it has recently been divided into substages 11a, 11b and 11c. Although MIS 11 overall is regarded as a warm interglacial period, a cold stage 11b separates the two warmer stages 11c and 11a (Ashton et al. 2008, 652; Table One.)
Mark White and his colleagues have analysed those British sites where large proportions of twisted ovates are present and located in the Lower Thames basin and East Anglia. (listed in Table Two.) They now propose that almost all British twisted ovate handaxes occur in East Anglia in MIS 11c, and then, after the MIS 11b cold interval, they reappear south of the
Thames, mainly in Kent in MIS 11a. The number of sites south of the Thames at Dartford and Swanscombe in Kent in which twisted ovate handaxes were found which have been linked to MIS 11a suggests that the Mereworth Woods twisted ovate handaxe and the other finds east of Ightham could also, like Limpsfield, be linked to MIS 11 and very tentatively to MIS 11a.
At present, such forms appear to be restricted to Britain and the closest neighbouring region of France, where those belonging to MIS 11 show pronounced twists on well-made refined forms, exactly as found in the British sample. Only one well-stratified and well-studied site in Ethiopia, plus a handful of surface collections, is known for the entire African Early Stone Age (Gallotti et al. 2010). Twisted handaxes are thus rare, highly distinctive, and tightly restricted in time and space.
Above, left
Fig 11: Seven handaxes with twisted profiles from Limpsfield, Surrey (Kitchen Collection)
Above, right
Fig 12 - An ovate handaxe with a twisted profile from Terrace B, Stoneyfield Pit near Farnham Surrey. Drawn by
M. Leakey. (Wade Collection; Oakley 1939, 34, Figure 9)
Marine Isotope substage | Years before present (approximately) | Climate |
11a | 370K – 360K | Warm |
11b | 395K – 370K | Cold |
11c | 430K – 395K | Warm |
Above: Table 1
Structure and sub-division of MIS 11 as revealed by isotopic records from ocean and ice cores. (data derived from Ashton et al. 2008, 653)
Site (% Twisted Handaxes) | Marine Isotope Stage or Substage |
East Anglia & adjacent counties | |
Barnham, Suffolk (33%) | MIS 11c |
Elveden, Suffolk (36-40%) | MIS 11c |
Foxhall Road Grey Clays, Suffolk (39%) | MIS 11c |
Hitchin, Hertsfordshire (45% of ovate assemblage) | MIS 11c |
Santon Downham, Suffolk (18%) | post-MIS 12 |
Allington Hill, Cambridgeshire (46%) | post-MIS 12 |
South of the Thames | |
Swanscombe Barnfield Upper Loam, Kent (22%) | MIS 11a |
Swanscombe Rickson’s Upper Gravel, Kent (16%) | MIS11a |
Swanscombe Dierden’s Stony Loam, Kent (16%) | MIS 11a |
Wansunt Pit, Kent (28%) | MIS 11a |
Bowman’s Lodge Pit, Kent (31%) | MIS 11a |
Limpsfield, Surrey (54%) | MIS 11 |
Farnham Terrace B, Surrey (‘a few’) | MIS 11 |
Above: Table 2
Sites where the lithic assemblages contain significant proportions of twisted ovate handaxes, organised by region and age correlations (based on White et al. 2019, 66
SOUTH OF THE THAMES
In North West Kent and Surrey, Dartford and Swanscombe are just six miles apart, which could have been covered in a few hours and Mereworth, Ightham, and Limpsfield are only about 15 to 20 miles from Dartford. The twisted ovates could feasibly be the product of just one or two local hominin groups of two to three hundred individuals (Fig 13)
THE kENTISH OGEE PEOPLE
This incidence pattern in a restricted period can reveal much about hominin settlement patterns, behaviour, and social networks during the Middle Pleistocene.
The area south of the Thames might have been home to only a few related local groups of hominins at this time, perhaps just a few hundred individuals. Nick Ashton (2017, 157) has suggested that during periods of stable environment such as that present during MIS 11a, local groups were able to persist in the landscape over multi-generational timescales and, once established, they developed ways to deal with local circumstances that became embedded into social practices. It is unclear whether this local group inherited their twisted ovate-making skills from the earlier groups living north of the Thames. The original MIS 11c groups would have moved south during MIS 11b to avoid the cold or possibly died out. Did the Kentish group return from the south in MIS 11a with these skills?
When the swings between stable and unstable environments in Britain during the Middle Pleistocene are linked to specific and time-related technologies, we can look more closely at the human groups who inhabited the area at particular periods in those times. So the distinctive lithic signature left by these twisted ovate handaxes, when linked to their recently established temporally-restricted incidence, allows us to catch a tiny glimpse of the activities and movements of a small group of humans who settled in North West Kent and the surrounding area south of the Thames for a short period about 365 000 years ago – The Kentish Ogee People.
The Kentish Ogee People are currently the earliest group of people identified as former inhabitants of this area. What did they look like? Mauricio Anton’s reconstructive representation of the Sima de los Huesos family at Atapuerca gives us an indication (Fig 14). This reconstruction is based on the remains of at least 28 individual hominin fossils found in the Sima de los Huesos (‘Pit of Bones’ in Spanish), which is a lower Palaeolithic cave site, one of several important sections of the Cueva Mayor-Cueva del Silo cave system of the Sierra de Atapuerca in north-central Spain. It is the largest and oldest collection of early human remains yet discovered, and they are currently dated to early MIS 11c. The picture immediately provokes questions, yet unanswered, about heating, clothing and shelter for the Kentish Ogee People.
The twisted ovate handaxes from other assemblages in Kent and other Museums and private collections and those still to be found
Top
Fig 13: Sketch Map showing the sites and rivers mentioned (see table 3 for key) © d.maps.com
Bottom
Table 3: Key for Fig 13. above
Place | Number on Fig 12 | River | Letter on Fig 12 |
Mereworth Site | 1 | Medway | M |
Ightham Sites | 2 | Darent | D |
Limpsfield Sites | 3 | Shode | S |
Swanscombe Sites | 4 | Cray | C |
Dartford Heath Sites | 5 | Ravensbourne | R |
West Wickham Site | 6 | Thames | T |
Aylesford Site | 7 | Eden | E |
could help us further improve our understanding of these people’s local range and activities.
The Kentish Ogee People are currently the earliest group of people identified as former inhabitants of this area. The twisted ovate handaxes from other assemblages in Kent and other Museums and private collections and those still to be found could help us further improve our understanding of these people’s local range and activities.
AckNOwLEdGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Robert Earl for bringing two handaxes to the Shorne Woods Archaeology Group, which initiated this research and Andrew Mayfield for arranging this. He would also like to thank Mark White for readily agreeing to the use of Figures Four and
Five and for sending the most recent versions of his work, and also Nick Ashton and the Sturge Room team at the British Museum (Franks House) for their help.
Figures ten and eleven are courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Finally, he would like to thank Stan Matthews for his helpful comments and suggestions after reading an earlier version of this paper.
Above
Fig 14: The Sima de los Huesos family at Atapuerca circa MIS 11c © Mauricio Anton
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