Lynford Quarry is the location of a well-preserved in-situ
Middle Palaeolithic open-air site near
Mundford,
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
.
The site, which dates to approximately 60,000 years ago, is believed to show evidence of hunting by
Neanderthals (''Homo neanderthalensis''). The finds include the in-situ remains of at least nine
woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus s ...
s (''Mammuthus primigenius''), associated with
Mousterian
The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...
stone tools and
debitage. The artefactual, faunal and environmental evidence were sealed within a Middle
Devensian palaeochannel with a dark organic fill. Well preserved in-situ sites of the time are exceedingly rare in Europe and very unusual within a British context.
The site also produced rhinoceros teeth, antlers, as well as other faunal evidence. The stone tools on the site numbered 600, made up of individual artefacts or waste flakes. Particularly interesting were the 44
hand axe
A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or ch ...
s of sub-triangular or ovate form.
The site was dated to Marine Isotope Stage 3 using Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating of the sand from the two layers of deposits within the channel.
See also
*
Prehistoric Norfolk
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
External links
*
Stone Age sites in England
Archaeological sites in Norfolk
Neanderthal sites
History of Norfolk
Mousterian
{{UK-archaeology-stub