New light on a dark river: the early prehistory of Old Father Thames.

Pettitt, Paul

ANTHONY MORIGI, DANIELLE SCHREVE, MARK WHITE, GILL HEV, PAUL GARWOOD, MARK ROBINSON, ALISTAIR BARCLAY & PHILIPPA BRADLEY. The Thames through time. The archaeology of the gravel terraces of the Upper and Middle Thames. Early Prehistory to 1500 BC. Part 1: the Ice Ages (Anthony Morigi, Danielle Schreve & Mark White). Part 2: Mesolithic to Early Bronze Age (Gill Hey, Paul Garwood, Mark Robinson, Alistair Barclay & Philippa Bradley) (Oxford Archaeology Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 32). xxvi+522 pages, 306 colour & b&w illustrations, 19 tables. 2011. Oxford: Oxford Archaeology; 978-0-9549627-8-4 hardback 34.99 [pounds sterling].

JOHN S.C. LEWIS with JAMES RACKHAM. Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge: a Lateglacial and early Holocene hunter-gatherer site in the Colne valley (MoLA Monograph 51). xx+228 pages, 229 b&w & colour illustrations, 67 tables. 2011. London: Museum of London Archaeology; 978-1-901992-97-7 hardback 25 [pounds sterling].

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The Thames, from rural Gloucestershire to London's sprawling conurbation, has long attracted the attention of antiquarians and archaeologists. Two recently published books, much of them devoted to the Thames Valley's remote past, add to this long tradition: both are excellent contributions to the literature and enrich, in particular, our understanding of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the region.

The Thames through time

The Thames has flowed through England since at least the Palaeocene some 55 million years ago, its name probably deriving from the Middle English Temese from an earlier root meaning 'dark'. The last two million years of its history is fairly well understood, and its terraces contain archaeology spanning the last half million years or more. Often accessible only through the activity of quarrying companies, the deposits of the river and its tributaries form one of the country's prime paleontological and archaeological resources. This impressive, multi-authored volume deals with the Palaeolithic to Bronze Age archaeology of the terraces of the Middle and Upper Thames and its tributaries; it forms part of a four-volume set, The Thames through time, with two previously-published volumes dealing with later prehistory and the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods (Booth et al. 2007, Lambrick et al. 2008) and a forthcoming volume devoted to the period AD 1000-2000. The series was funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund and must surely stand as testimony to the achievements of this English-Heritage-administered initiative. As the series editor points out, previous surveys of the archaeology of the Thames have all too often taken only a "brief and wary glance" back at the "daunting and unfamiliar world of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic". This unforgivable imbalance is more than redressed by this fine volume which, at over 500 pages and with sumptuous figures, does credit to the publisher's art. It is sufficiently detailed to be a useful reference for specialists, but has enough scope, broad geographical framework and explanation of wider concepts to be of use as an introductory text to British prehistory and palaeoenvironments.

Prior to 500000 years ago the Thames flowed through the Vale of St. Albans, to the north of its present course. No in situ archaeology has been found from deposits of this time, although several such deposits are found in the gravels of the late Anglian, the great glaciation which diverted the Thames southwards to its broadly modern course and began the accumulation of half a million years' of terraces, each formed when the river abandoned its current floodplain and incised a new channel, raising each subsequent pair of terraces in a step-like formation from Oxfordshire and the Chilterns to Essex and north Kent. From this time, numerous high-quality sites indicate periodic occupation at the beginnings and ends of interglacials (named Hoxnian, Purfleet and Aveley, two of which derive from terraces of the Thames). Well-known sites such as Swanscombe, Aveley, Stanton Harcourt and the Trafalgar Square hippos are given detailed treatment in impressive environmental context. The Upper Palaeolithic coverage, by contrast, is short and padded out with material from elsewhere in the UK. It is a shame that this period often plays second fiddle to Britain's impressive Lower Palaeolithic; here a small number of important sites from the Greater London area, including The Creswellian site of Wey Manor Farm in Surrey and Three Ways Wharf in Uxbridge (see below) are only tangentially mentioned, and important single finds such as a the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic point from Godalming in Surrey and a Late Upper Palaeolithic baton perce from the Thames at Syon Reach near Richmond, both of which are poorly-known, are omitted.

Diverse Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age sites are abundant in the Middle and Upper Thames region. The coverage of the regional Mesolithic in a detailed chapter brings an often-neglected period to life in its widest sense and could serve as a respectable introduction to Mesolithic archaeology in general. Ceremonial and funerary monuments appear in the region from the early Neolithic and display clear regional clustering, taking either the form of major monumental sites such as Avebury in the extreme southwest of the region or of numerous modest complexes on the Upper Thames's gravel terraces. Cotswold-type (long barrow) monuments and causewayed enclosures feature strongly, and a detailed analysis of ceremonial sites indicates a marked regionality of Cotswold tombs, long cairns and other mortuary structures, causewayed enclosures and cursus monuments. Evidence for settlement is also strong, and sites such as Yarnton receive deserved attention.

The highest praise must go to the colour illustration; photographs, colour maps and plans really do bring the sites, monuments and artefacts to life, and it is most refreshing to see far more of these illustrated than the usual 'iconic' materials that usually crop up. Where else might one find colour photographs of the toe bone of a Middle Pleistocene macaque, a later prehistoric club from the Thames at Chelsea, beautiful artists' reconstructions of the Yarnton Neolithic longhouse or a procession along the top of the Stanwell Bank Barrow viewed from an enclosure? A series of well-illustrated two-page box features explain wider concepts, for example palaeoclimate and river terrace formation, modern human origins, the Mesolithic of the Kennet Valley, Neolithic buildings, the Dorchester ceremonial centre, the Devil's Quoits Late Neolithic henge, the Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments complex at Radley or metalwork of the Thames Valley. A final chapter deals with artefacts in terms of procurement, production and exchange, drawing on a wide variety of spectacular finds from Radley, the Eton Rowing Course, the Snowshill barrow, Yarnton and a number of findspots in the Thames itself. This is a magnificent volume in a magnificent series, that should serve as a benchmark for integrating specialist publications with wider outreach. No one should find this dull and overly-simplistic, or complex and unintelligible. Specialists, archaeologists in general, students and the wider public will benefit greatly from this volume.

Three Ways Wharf

The Lateglacial archaeology of the Colne River, a tributary of the Thames to the north-west of London, receives deserved attention in the long-awaited monograph on the Three Ways Wharf site at Uxbridge, one of Britain's flagship Upper Palaeolithic sites. Excavations in the 1980s revealed a Lateglacial camp on the banks of the Colne which until now has only been published in interim reports. It comprises several small lithic scatters attributable to the Long Blade industries characteristic of the British Lateglacial and Preboreal, as well as Early Holocene Mesolithic industries and some faunal remains. Two scatters belong to the former; they were associated with reindeer and, in one scatter, possibly horse. A comprehensive dating programme was not possible due to poor collagen preservation, but a few radiocarbon measurements on horse bones reveal an age straddling the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary c. 12000-9300 cal BP. The site is well situated: high ground to the east afforded long-distance views over the Colne floodplain and presumably a nearby fording point facilitated reindeer hunting. A soil had developed on the gravels during the Lateglacial, which supported a Boreal woodland dominated by pine and sedges. Flint and chert were obtained locally from the river's gravels, determining the relatively small size of most cores and blades.

Scatter A consists of 681 artefacts and takes the form of two distinct low-density lithic scatters dominated by flakes and blades; refitting elements of these suggests minimal disturbance. The main concern seems to have been to produce a relatively small amount of blades of good length, although other activities are suggested by 19 retouched tools including obliquely-truncated microliths and informally retouched blades, and the presence of burnt flints implies the presence of a hearth. The butchered remains of one or two adult reindeer, consisting of almost solely the limbs, were associated with this scatter.

Scatter C comprises more than 15 000 lithic artefacts, a sizable proportion of which belong to the Early Mesolithic. Technologically, the Lateglacial assemblage seems transitional between Scatter A (few blades, maximising length) and the Early Mesolithic Scatter C West (larger numbers of blades from smaller nodules, shorter in length). The assemblage includes 'bruised blades' and flakes. As with Scatter A, burnt flints in Scatter C East suggest that activity was organised in proximity to a hearth, and the faunal remains of reindeer reveal the processing of an adult male, adult female and immature male in this area. Two antler fragments among these suggest that the site was occupied in winter or early spring. Meatier upper limb bones clustered close to the presumed hearth, and three artefacts with use-wear characteristic of cutting meat support the view that the meat was butchered, and probably consumed, at the hearthside. Lithic refits show extensive decortication, use of cresting on the backs and sides of cores to facilitate the removal of core tablets and several phases of blade removal often with the continuous adjustment of the platform through faceting. Use-wear analysis of lithics from Scatters A and C indicate that other activities at the site included cutting fish, whittling wood, boring antler and possibly scraping hide. This is an excellent monograph of a rare British Lateglacial site from which fauna, spatial patterning and activity areas have been recovered. It is a major European Lateglacial archaeological site and its publication has been well worth waiting for.

References

BOOTH, P., A. DODD, M. ROBINSON & A. SMITH. 2007. The archaeology of the gravel terraces of the Upper and Middle Thames. The early historical period AD1-1000. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology.

LAMBRICK, G. with M. ROBINSON & T. ALLEN. 2008. The archaeology of the Upper and Middle Thames. The first foundations of modern society in the Thames Valley 1500 BC-AD 50. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology.

Paul Pettitt, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield S1 4ET, UK (Email: p.pettitt@sheffield.ac.uk)