Bournemouth University

School of Conservation Sciences

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Joint Day School

Unquiet Lands: People and Landscapes in Prehistoric North West Europe

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The Palaeolithic Rivers of South-West Britain (PRoSWeB) project
Tony Brown, Laura Basell, Rob Hosfield and Phil Toms

The PRoSWeB project was set up to investigate the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic archaeology (c. 700,000–40,000 years ago) of the south-west region, particularly the stone artifacts associated with the Ice Age (Pleistocene) sands and gravels of the rivers to the west of the Devon/Dorset border, such as the Axe, the Otter, and the Exe. The project’s fieldwork investigations have generated new information about the south-west region’s rivers, including their development during the Pleistocene and the ages of their deposits, and the ages of the stone artefact archaeology associated with them. Apart from producing the first chronology for rivers south west of the Axe Valley the project has demonstrated shown how much wider floodplains were formed by more powerful palaeo-rivers during the Pleistocene predominantly in response to climate change. It is upon, and around, these floodplains, or most commonly braid plains, that Lower and Middle Palaeolithic hominins moved and acted. The vastly different topographies and resources of these environments have yet to be fully appreciated. This paper presents new thinking on the implications of new models of terrace formation on archaeology and particularly the ecology of hominins.