Chronological variations in handaxes: patterns detected from fluvial archives in north-west Europe

The use of handaxe morphology as a cultural and temporal marker within the Quaternary Lower–Middle Palaeolithic record has had a very chequered history, and abuses in the past have led recent generations of archaeologist to reject it out of hand. In Britain, however, advances in dating Pleistocene sediments, setting their ages within a framework of ∼11 glacial–interglacial cycles over the past 1 Ma, has revealed several patterns in technology and morphology that must be related to changing practices and cultural preferences over time. These are not predictable, nor are they linear, but nevertheless they may aid understanding of the movements of different peoples in and out of Britain over the past 500 000 years. It is also clear that such patterns are to be expected over a much wider region of the nearby continent, although they might not be identical, or even similar, to those established for southern Britain. This paper extends from explanation of the British patterns to an exploration of the extent to which something comparable can be recognized in neighbouring areas of continental Europe: a baseline for a planned collaborative survey of data from the Acheulean of north-west European river systems

A Cut‐marked and Fractured Mesolithic Human Bone from Kent\u27s Cavern, Devon, UK

An isolated adult human ulna fragment recovered from the ‘black mould’ layer of Kent\u27s Cavern by William Pengelly in 1866 exhibits a series of stone tool cut marks. The specimen has been directly AMS 14C‐dated to 7314–7075 cal bc (OxA‐20588: 8185 ± 38 bp) and may be from the same individual as a maxilla fragment dated to the same period. The cut marks are located on the olecranon process, in a position indicative of dismemberment, whereas the fracture characteristics of the bone furthermore suggest peri‐mortem breakage, typical of butchery for the extraction of marrow. We here present and discuss the specimen and consider both ritual mortuary treatment and anthropophagy as possible explanations. Although it is difficult to interpret a single element in isolation, the latter scenario seems to be better supported and is not without parallel in prehistoric Europe, as indicated by a review of the available literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd