The Paleolithic of the Upper Ravensbourne Valley, Kent - Research in Progress

By Frank Beresford

The study area is in West Wickham, Kent, now part of the London Borough of Bromley, and is located where the Wealden Anticline in the south meets the edge of the London Basin in the north.

Two main arms of the Ravensbourne Valley, now dry with some smaller subsidiary valleys, dissect the chalk. Dewey noted that on account of the erosion of the overlying beds by the river Ravensbourne, the chalk forms a re-entrant angle into the Tertiary outcrops at a deeper horizon to the north of the area (Dewey 1924).

Palaeoliths were located in this area in the period 1880 to 1905. However, the last report by any of the original investigators was in 1908 in VCH (Kent) Volume One (Clinch 1908, 307). All subsequent mention of this material derives from this report and is associated with the writer George Clinch. In 1999, John Wymer noted that the area was "alleged to have produced large numbers of surface palaeoliths in the 19th century, but few can now be found or identified as coming from the locations recorded" (Wymer 1999, 167).

The aim of this study is to establish:

• What is the research history of the palaeolithic in this area, both archaeological and geological, in the late 19th and early 20th century?
• What remains of the lithics collections that were found in that period?
• To what extent is it now possible to construct a useful account of the palaeolithic of this area based on the extant collections and any other sources of information?

Fig 1: Palaeolithic Implements, West Wickham

Abstract from a presentation given at the British Museum, Franks House, Tues. 17th April 2013 to the Lithics Studies Society

Palaeolithic of the Upper Ravensbourne Valley?

Research has established that three men discovered most of the lithic material found in the study area in the years from 1878 to 1898.

• George Clinch (1860-1921)
• Arthur Santer Kennard (1870 - 1948)
• Alfred Edward Salter (1863 - 1926)

Parts of their collections have been discovered at the British Museum, Bromley Museum and Maidstone Museum - all having passed through the collections of at least one other person or museum. About 100 artefacts have been located and analysis of this is in progress, to which will be added published information about other artefacts which can no longer be traced.

All three wrote about their finds in academic journals, popular journals, personal notebooks and maps, personal scrapbooks, privately published papers and local newspapers during the period 1882 to 1908. Many of these accounts have been located for this study.

The various find sites have been mapped using these contemporary accounts and the field names from an 1882 map produced by Clinch and an 1838 tithe map. The main site is in one of the small subsidiary dry chalk valleys with some material from another similar valley. Other material was found at the confluence of the two, now dry, arms of the Ravensbourne and on the surrounding hills.

Although the current BGS geological map shows no evidence of river terracing in this area, accounts contemporary with the finds and recent field observation indicate that traces of river terracing were and are evident even though they are not of a sufficient depth to be included on the geological map. Clinch, Kennard and Salter were all members of the Geologist’s Association who wrote about and discussed the geological context of their finds. Although the finds were mainly surface finds after deep ploughing, all three men linked them with river terraces and in particular the highest terrace.

Fig 2: 1882 Map with main site. British Library Map Collection

The current Ravensbourne is the remnant of a much longer pre-Anglian river which once flowed further south and further north possibly in channels subsequently used by the post-Anglian River Lea. The possibility of some of the palaeolithic material being linked to a pre-Anglian terrace (MIS 13) is therefore being investigated.

Another possibility for dating some of this material links to its association by Kennard with Prestwich’s Hill Group (Prestwich 1889, Hinton and Kennard 1905.) While this supports the proposal that some of this material could be derived from MIS 13 deposits, it is also possible that some of the material is much later.

John McNabb (McNabb 2012, 218) noted that on typological grounds some of the material, now located in Maidstone Museum, that was used to illustrate Prestwich’s original paper “should be unambiguously Lower Palaeolithic, yet, it appears dominated by Neanderthal Mousterian tools of the later Middle Palaeolithic”. He proposed that together with the Oldbury site this suggests a hitherto unsuspected wider Mousterian Landscape. Consequently the Upper Ravensbourne material is also being assessed on typological grounds for evidence of similar MIS 13 material. Error: MIS13 should be MIS3

It is hoped that a final report will be completed in 2014 for subsequent publication.

Bibliography

• Clinch G. (1908) Early Man. Victoria County History Kent 1 307-38
• Dewey H, et al. (1924) Geology of the Country around Dartford, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of England and Wales, Explanation of Sheet 271
• Hinton M. And Kennard A. S. (1905) The Relative Ages of the Stone Implements of the Lower Thames Valley. Proceedings of the Geologists Association XV, 76 - 100
• McNabb, J. (2012) Dissent with modification: human origins, palaeolithic archaeology, and evolutionary anthropology in Victorian Britain, 1859-1901, Archaeopress.
• Prestwich J. 1889. On the occurrence of Palaeolithic Flint Implements in the Neighbourhood of Ightham, Kent; their Distribution and Probable Age. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 45, 270 -297.
• Wymer J. 1999, The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain 1, Wessex Archaeology and English Heritage.