Information for record number MWA10310:
Lower Palaeolithic Occupation at Bubbenhall

Summary A lower Palaeolithic occupation site, predating the Anglian glaciation.
What Is It?  
Type: Occupation Site
Period: Late Lower Palaeolithic (500000 BC - 150001 BC)
Where Is It?  
Parish: Bubbenhall
District: Warwick, Warwickshire
Grid Reference: SP 36 71
(Data represented on this map shows the current selected record as a single point, this is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an accurate or complete representation of archaeological sites or features)
Level of Protection National - Old SMR PrefRef (Grade: )
Sites & Monuments Record
Description

  
Source Number  

1 Over 100 Lower Paaleolithic artefacts recovered since the 1980s, most since 2004. Includes four andesite handaxes, two of the finest workmanship, the rest quartzite choppers, cores and flakes, plus one flint handaxe tip. Shows a Lower Palaeolithic occupation in this area, probably of some duration, prior to the Anglian glaciation. Poses major question of the source of the andesite which hails from the lake District but unlikely that man carrried the stone that far, therefore suggests a hitherto undefined glacio-fluvial event carried clasts to the Midlands.
2 Artefacts of Cromerian (MIS 13) age recovered from extensions to the classic site of Waverley Wood Farm Pit, Warwickshire, give new insights into the Lower Palaeolithic and Pleistocene geological record of the English Midlands. The Baginton Formation in the area to the south and southwest of Coventry has been the major source of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts in the Midlands since the first discoveries in the 1930s. Current sand and gravel workings at Waverley Wood and Wood Farm Pits near the village of Bubbenhall, have provided artefacts of quartzite, andesite and flint together with sparse large mammal material. Some of the Lower Palaeolithic finds were in situ in the succession providing, for the first time, firm evidence of their geological provenance. The variety and number of the artefacts allows detailed evaluation of the largest group of Lower Palaeolithic tools to be found in the West Midlands. The petrology of some of the tools and associated clasts in the gravels at the base of the Baginton Formation allow speculation on the origin of the rock types from northwest and eastern England which may have been brought to the West Midlands by a pre-Anglian glaciation or just possibly by human transport.
 
Sources
Source No: 2
Source Type: Article in serial
Title: A Lower Palaeolithic industry from the Cromerian (MIS 13) Baginton Formation of Waverley Wood and Wood Farm Pits, Bubbenhall, Warwickshire, UK
Author/originator: Keen D H, Hardaker T, Lang A O
Date: 2006
Page Number: 457-470
Volume/Sheet: 21.5
   
Source No: 1
Source Type: Report a Find submission
Title: Report a find submission: Waverley Wood Lower Palaeolithic Project
Author/originator: Hardaker, T
Date: 2007
Page Number:
Volume/Sheet:
   
Images:  
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Glossary

 
Word or Phrase
Description  
period Palaeolithic About 500,000 BC to 10,001 BC

Palaeolithic means 'Old Stone Age'.
It covers a very long period from the first appearance in Britain of tool-using humans (about 500,000 years ago) to the retreat of the glacial ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere (about 12,000 years ago).

Archaeologists divide the period up into the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, the Lower Palaeolithic being the oldest phase. This period began many, many years after the dinosaurs became extinct (about 65 million years ago). It was during the Palaeolithic period that modern humans replaced Neanderthals, and megafauna, such as woolly mammoths roamed through the landscape.
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monument TRANSPORT * This is the top term for the class. See TRANSPORT Class List for narrow terms. back
monument VILLAGE * A collection of dwelling-houses and other buildings, usually larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a simpler organisation and administration than the latter. back
monument SITE * Unclassifiable site with minimal information. Specify site type wherever possible. back
monument LAKE * A large body of water surrounded by land. back
monument STONE * Use only where stone is natural or where there is no indication of function. back
monument PIT * A hole or cavity in the ground, either natural or the result of excavation. Use more specific type where known. back
monument WOOD * A tract of land with trees, sometimes acting as a boundary or barrier, usually smaller and less wild than a forest. back
monument OCCUPATION SITE * A site showing some signs of occupation but evidence is insufficient to imply permanent settlement. back
monument FARM * A tract of land, often including a farmhouse and ancillary buildings, used for the purpose of cultivation and the rearing of livestock, etc. Use more specific type where known. back

* Copyright of English Heritage (1999)

English Heritage National Monuments Record