The Great Fossil Mine of the southern North Sea : exploring the potential of submerged Palaeolithic archaeology
This research explores the potential of the submerged Palaeolithic archaeology of the southern North Sea for answering questions about how hominins occupied and adapted within their environments in these northerly latitudes throughout the Pleistocene. Recent coastal discoveries in East Anglia have demonstrated occupation as far back as ~1 million years, and yet our appreciation of the how, why and who of this occupation is missing a crucial piece of its puzzle; excluding these now-submerged landscapes is an active bias on our understanding, truncating the archaeological record. Having been subjected to repeated glaciations, trans- and regressions, the very processes that led to the terrestrial exposure of these areas have subsequently led to their neglect: the assumption that pre-LGM deposits will have been eroded or re-worked has prevailed. Recent work, however, has demonstrated the inaccuracy of this assumption, with evidence for extant Pleistocene-age deposits, landscape features and archaeology. Unlocking the clear potential of these submerged landscapes now relies on the approaches that we take to their investigation as, to-date, all archaeological finds have been entirely by chance. In order to move
Bynoe, Rachel
CC Archaeology ; GC Oceanography
The Great Fossil Mine of the southern North Sea : exploring the potential of submerged Palaeolithic archaeology. This research explores the potential of the submerged Palaeolithic archaeology of the southern North Sea for answering questions about how hominins occupied and adapted within their environments in these northerly latitudes throughout the Pleistocene. Recent coastal discoveries in East Anglia have demonstrated occupation as far back as ~1 million years, and yet our appreciation of the how, why and who of this occupation is missing a crucial piece of its puzzle; excluding these now-submerged landscapes is an active bias on our understanding, truncating the archaeological record. Having been subjected to repeated glaciations, trans- and regressions, the very processes that led to the terrestrial exposure of these areas have subsequently led to their neglect: the assumption that pre-LGM deposits will have been eroded or re-worked has prevailed. Recent work, however, has demonstrated the inaccuracy of this assumption, with evidence for extant Pleistocene-age deposits, landscape features and archaeology. Unlocking the clear potential of these submerged landscapes now relies on the approaches that we take to their investigation as, to-date, all archaeological finds have been entirely by chance. In order to move
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