Hoxne: Difference between revisions

 

== Overview ==

 

In 1797, [[John Frere]] (1740-1807) found flint hand tools found twelve feet deep in [[Hoxne Brick Pit]], and he was the first person to recognise ancient tools as being man-made. One of his [[hand axe]]s is in the [[British Museum]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://culturalinstitute.britishmuseum.org/asset-viewer/hoxne-handaxe/QQHLEInZfSGV2g?hl=en|title=Hoxne handaxe|publisher=British Museum|accessdate= 3 July 2017}}</ref> His letter to the [[Society of Antiquaries of London|Society of Antiquaries]], read on 22 June 1797 and published in the Society's journal ''Archaeologia'' in 1800, argued for the antiquity of these [[handaxes]] as "even beyond the present world", in a period now recognised as belonging to the Lower [[Paleolithic Age]]. Frere argued that these "weapons" were coincident with nearby extinct elephant fossils, in strata at the site of what is now known to be a [[Middle Pleistocene]] lake formed during the [[Hoxnian Stage|Great Interglacial]] geological warming period in Europe. Accordingly, in Britain that entire period is called "Hoxnian", signifying its identification there, based on evidence from undisturbed layers of pollens from plants and trees found at Frere's site in the 1950s (notably by [[Richard Gilbert West]]), which established the cycle of warming and cooling and defined the stages of the Great Interglacial.<ref>[[Chris Stringer]], ''Homo Britannicus: The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain'' (London: 2006)</ref> Teams headed by the [[University of Chicago]] made extensive excavations at Frere's site for five years between 1971 and 1978.<ref>Ronald Singer et al., ''The Lower Paleolithic Site at Hoxne, England'' (Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]], 1993).</ref> They confirmed the date of the handaxes as ca 400,000 years BP, coincident with the [[Swanscombe]] finds, which, unlike the Hoxne, include human remains. Subsequent research by the [[Ancient Human Occupation of Britain]] team has confirmed the presence of these ancestors of the Neanderthals as occurring towards the terminal, cooling phase of the Interglacial period, which, according to [[Chris Stringer]], "came to an end,...taking with it the lush river valleys, forests and grasslands on which the herds of horses and deer, and their hunters, relied. Ice sheets returned...to the north-west of Europe...and a new pattern of episodic occupation was set in motion", lasting over three-hundred thousand years.<ref>Stringer, ''Homo Britannicus'', pp. 90f.</ref> Hoxne Brick Pit is a geological [[Site of Special Scientific Interest]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/1004410.pdf |title=Hoxne Brick Pit citation|series= Sites of Special Scientific Interest|publisher=Natural England|accessdate= 3 July 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx?startTopic=Designations&activelayer=sssiIndex&query=HYPERLINK%3D%271004410%27 |title=Map of Hoxne Brick Pit|series= Sites of Special Scientific Interest|publisher=Natural England|accessdate= 3 July 2017}}</ref> but it has been filled in and a house been built on part of it.