Further Palaeolithic material from Frindsbury, Kent

By Frank Beresford

After an open day at Shorne Woods, about two years ago, a small collection of palaeolithic material was brought to the group for further research. Labelled the Killick collection it includes material from Barnfield Pit, Swanscombe marked Milton Street and from Twydale on the Medway Estuary. Probably the most interesting part of the collection however was a group of 14 large long flakes from the chalk quarry at Frindsbury, which is opposite Rochester on the River Medway. Close to the site of All Saints, Frindsbury, this site was excavated by W. Cook and J. Killick in August 1923 (Cook and Killick, 1924).

On a prior visit to the pit, they had noticed that in removing “callow” in a depression on the west side of the quarry, the workmen had uncovered four piles of worked flints with sharp unabraded edges indicating a working floor. In the subsequent excavations, “upward of 4000” artefacts were uncovered in an area of about 400 square feet. Cook subsequently sold 16 cores, 478 flakes and two handaxes to the British Museum for £25 where some were quickly put on display.

Despite the fresh condition of the assemblage, the site’s location in a hollow within chalky drift directly above chalk bedrock rather than being associated with a fluvial deposit means that it cannot be securely dated. It has been proposed that palaeolithic activity took place within a minor relatively horizontally based depression within an area of sloping ground. The material was then buried by fine-grained colluvial slope wash deposits that have sealed it with minimum disturbance. However, the chalk bedrock was above the bank of a river terrace which has been broadly correlated to Marine Isotope Stages 10 – 8 (Wenban-Smith et. al. 2007, 34).

On typological grounds the Frindsbury material has been associated with that found at Botany Pit, Purfleet, Essex which is linked to late Marine Isotope Stage 9/early Marine Isotope Stage 8 - about 300,000 years ago. Both are described as simple prepared core and flake industries which generally produce slightly larger and longer flakes than other techniques, the flakes from Frindsbury being comparatively longer than those from Botany Pit (White and Ashton 2003, 601).

In the British Museum’s Frindsbury collection there are also some refitting groups. One group consists of five refitting flakes all knapped from a single plain platform.

These flakes are similar to the 14 flakes in the Killick collection and are described by Wenban-Smith et. al. 2007 as characteristic of ‘Frindsbury type’ which are larger and broader than those at other sites and lack the elaborate prepared striking platforms of later material from sites like Clacton, Hoxne and Purfleet. Indeed, many of the flakes from the Killick collection show little evidence of deliberate platform preparation and are broadly comparable to those produced from the Clacton assemblage (White and Schreve 2000).

Although no refitting has yet been accomplished with these even though two flakes are marked with the numbers 1 & 2 respectively on their plain platforms. The Killick collection flakes match those in the British Museum and are all generally characterised by plain platforms and mainly linear flake scar patterns on the dorsal face.

A report is in preparation which will include a full description of the 14 flakes from the Killick collection. The Killick collection also contains a large number of smaller flakes that are unmarked but match the 14 Frindsbury flakes in colour and patina. A small amount of similar material is in the British Museum and this material could form part of the “upward of 4000” artefacts originally reported. Any further information about J. R. Killick would be helpful. Rochester Museum also contains a collection of palaeolithic material from Frindsbury.

Images

LEFT: The excavation team on the first morning of the dig with W. Cook on the left and J. Killick on the right

BELOW: The “working floor” that was revealed by the end of the first day

LEFT: The British Museum’s record of the purchase

Selection from flint working-floor above the 100 ft. terrace of the Medway at Frindsbury, opposite Chatham Dockyard, excavated by Messrs. W.H. Cook & J.R. Killick; period of Le Moustier. Purchased 1925. [Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia, 1924, p. 133]

ABOVE: A flake (dorsal and ventral faces) from British Museum's Frindsbury collection

ABOVE: A simple prepared core from British Museum's Frindsbury collection

LEFT: A group of five refitting flakes from Frindsbury made from a simple prepared core (British Museum collection)

ABOVE: Flakes from the Killick collection showing both ventral and dorsal faces

LEFT: Flakes from the Killick collection showing both ventral and dorsal faces

References

Cook, W. H. and Killick, J.R., 1924. On the discovery of a flint-working site of Palaeolithic date in the Medway Valley at Rochester, Kent, with notes on the drift stages of the Medway. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia 4:133-49.

Wenban-Smith F.F, Bates M.R. and Marshall G., 2007. The Palaeolithic Resource in the Medway Gravels, Kent, Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project, Final Report (available online).

White, M. J. and Ashton, N. M., 2003. Lower palaeolithic core technology and the origins of the Levallois method in North-Western Europe., Current Anthropology, 44 (4), pp. 598-609.