Details

LOT 1604

Clactonian Knapped Homo Heidelbergensis Proto Handaxe

LOWER PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 400,000-300,000 B.P.

3 1/8 in. (178 grams, 81 mm).

Triangular core with two edges trimmed, one finely; with inked collection number: 'TWYDALL / 10. ss.1017.A'. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Found Twydall, Kent, UK.
Richard Jones collection, Welling, Kent, UK, 1912-1915.
Ex Rochester Museum, Kent collections.
Specialist collection of J Edwin Jarvis.
Ex Martin Schoyen collection, London, UK.
From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

Literature

The Twydall finds are discussed in Beresford, F.R., Palaeolithic Material From Lower Twydall Chalk Pit In Kent: The Cook And Killick Collection, in Lithics, Vol.39, 2021.

Footnotes

These tools were part of the collection that was originally donated by a Mr Richard Jones of Welling in Kent to the Rochester Museum. During the period 1912-1915. Mr George Payne of the Kent Archaeological Society also collected along with a Mr George Baker. During 1902 'Sharpes Green Cement Works' was erected, then the smallest cement works on record, using second hand equipment and the last to use Static Chamber Kilns. The processing site was situated on the south shore of the river Medway near Gillingham, Kent, on an island known locally as "Horrid Hill" just off the shore. Horrid Hill was so named because French prisoners of the Napoleonic war who attempted to escape the 'Hulks' moored on the river were hanged here for their efforts. The raw material for the manufacture of cement was extracted from a local quarry in orchard grounds belonging to a Mr Walter Stunt of Lorenden, Faversham, Kent at a place called Twydall between Chatham and Upchurch. During the removal of the chalk an infilled cavity was broken into on the eastern face of the quarry, which contained very rich lower Palaeolithic material. To facilitate the removal of the extracted chalk from the quarry to the works on the river a trackway was constructed to allow a small horse drawn railway to carry wagon loads of chalk for processing. To transport the loads over the tidal saltmarsh from river bank to the island a causeway was built above the upper tidal limit to the works. The material used was the gravel extracted at the quarry which was useless for the manufacture of cement and which contained the implements. The subsequent erosion caused by the tidal flow of the river exposed the Palaeolithic implements along the stretch of the causeway and, during the period of 1912 to 1915, were collected from the surface. The majority of the material is made up of flakes and cores typical of the 'Clactonian' style with also some Acheulian axes. The implements are well retouched and worked on thick, heavy flakes with high angle platforms, typical of the 'Clactonian' industry. The tools are made from the same marbled north Kent flint which was used at the Swanscombe Palaeolithic site from the ancient lower gravels of the Thames valley. This flint is typically a brown and yellow banded variety derived from the dark green skinned nodules of the "Bull Head" bed which underlies the Thanet sands.