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The Palaeolithic Sequence at Iver, Bucks. With an Appendix on the Geology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

A. D. Lacaille  and
K. P. Oakley
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Extract

References to palaeolithic implements from the Pleistocene deposits in the Buckinghamshire parish of Iver have appeared from time to time in the Proceedings of learned societies. The British Museum Guide to Antiquities of the Stone Age, 1926, p. 46, mentions artifacts from this district, where palaeoliths have been collected for nearly half a century, but a general summary has not been made showing the sequence of cultures and the significance of the relics from the local deposits. The author has had the commercial workings in the Iver gravels under observation for a number of years, and thinks that the archaeological evidence, now made available as a result of continuous supervision, may perhaps assist in the revision of published material.

The area under review measures almost two miles from east to west and a mile and a half from north to south (map, fig. 1). It may be taken as bounded on the east by the Colne Brook, one of the branches of the River Colne, and on the west by a line passing through Parsonage Farm south-west of Shreding Green, which stands, like the eastern end of Iver village in the north-east corner of the rectangle, at an altitude of 120 ft.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1936 , pp. 420 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1936

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References

page 420 note 1 A large pit in the Glacial Gravel at Swallow Street, 600 yards north by west of Iver, worked for many years but recently closed, still shows a shallow section of unstratified white and mostly broken gravel containing a marked proportion of quartz, quartzite, and similar pebbles reposing on London Clay.

page 422 note 1 Loc. cit. supra, pp. 169-71.

page 422 note 2 Mr. Oakley observes that, in view of the fact that there is no nearby outcrop of Chalk, the so-called disintegrated chalk noted by Mr. Allen Brown was probably nothing else than highly calcareous brickearth weathered white.

page 422 note 3 On the plates illustrating sections of the gravel-workings the layers are indicated by numbers corresponding to those shown in the Palaeolithic sequence table, infra, p. 431. Thus, in ascending order are represented: (1) river gravel; (2) solifluxion gravel; (3) red brickearth; (4) greyish-buff loam. The topsoil is not numbered. The scale, where shown, is in feet and divisions of 20 cm. left and right respectively.

page 425 note 1 Loc. cit. p. 171.

page 425 note 2 Breuil, H. and Koslowski, L., ‘Études de Stratigraphie Paléolithique dans le Nord de la France, etc’ in L'Anthropologie, 1931, xli, 449 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 426 note 1 Loc. cit. p. 170.

page 428 note 1 The contention that Le Moustier culture derives from that of Clacton would appear to be well supported by this Iver specimen, which closely resembles the classic pointe-racloir.

page 429 note 1 Proc. Preh. Soc. East Anglia, v, pt. III, p. 297.

page 429 note 2 Ibid.

page 429 note 3 Antiq. Journ. xiv, 33-9.

page 429 note 4 Proc. Preh. Soc. East Anglia, vi, pt. III, p. 150.

page 429 note 5 Antiq. Journ. xiv, 35.

page 429 note 6 Loc. cit., p. 170.

page 430 note 1 The Sturge Collection (British Museum), p. 96 and fig. 390.

page 430 note 2 Several bout-coupé cleavers, assigned to Levallois V, in the collection of Mr. Harper Kelley, Paris, closely resemble the Iver example.

page 432 note 1 Summarized by King, W. B. R. and Oakley, K. P., ‘The Pleistocene Succession in the Lower parts of the Thames Valley’, Proc. Preh. Soc. for 1936, pp. 52–76Google Scholar.

page 432 note 2 Geological Survey Maps (I in. to the mile), New Series: sheets 2 56 and 269.

page 433 note 1 Geological Survey Maps (I in. to mile), new ser., sheets 256 and 269.

page 433 note 2 Burchell, J. P. T., 1934, ‘The Middle Mousterian Culture and its relation to the Coombe Rock of Post-Early Mousterian Times’, Antiq. Journ. xiv, 33–9Google Scholar.

page 433 note 3 H. Breuil, 1934, ‘De 1'Importance de la Solifluxion dans l'Ètude des Terrains Quaternaires de la France et des Pays Voisins’, Revue de Géographie Physique de Géologie Dynamique, vii, fasc. 4, description of fig. 41.

page 433 note 4 It should be noted that Messrs. Ll. Treacher and Osborne White have recognized in the Furze Platt gravels a terrace intermediate between that of Burnham Beeches and that of Taplow (‘Excursion to Maidenhead,’ Proc. Geol. Assoc. xxi, 1909,198-201). The Furze Platt gravels are, however, considerably older than the Iver gravels, in spite of their apparent correspondence with the latter as regards relative position. It is hoped to deal with the somewhat complex relations between the ‘Furze Platt terrace’ and the Iver terrace in a later communication.

page 435 note 1 Burchell, J. P. T., ‘Evidence of. a Further Glacial Episode within the Valley of the Lower Thames’, Geol. Mag. lxxii, 1935, 90Google Scholar.

page 435 note 2 These finds are preserved in the Sturge Collection at the British Museum (Bloomsbury).

page 436 note 1 Breuil, H., 1934, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 436 note 2 In any case the archaeological evidence points to the brickearths of Iver being younger than the ‘Older Loess’ of the Somme.

page 436 note 3 Burchell, J. P. T., ‘Evidence of a Further Glacial Episode within the Valley of the Lower Thames’, Geol. Mag. lxxii, 1935, 90Google Scholar.

page 436 note 4 The fact that the grey-buff loam is even less calcareous than the red does not, however, tend to support this view. I am greatly indebted to Mr. M. H. Hey, of the Mineral Department, British Museum (Nat. Hist.), for making a determination of the carbonate content of the two types of brickearth. He reports as follows:—Red loam 1·36 % CaCO3. Grey-buff loam 0·30 % CaCO3.

page 437 note 1 Burchell, J. P. T., ‘Evidence of a Late Glacial Episode within the Valley of the Lower Thames,’ Geol. Mag. lxxiii (1936) 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 437 note 2 It is not improbable that the material forming the stoneless brickearths, although accumulated in water, was largely wind-borne. Their present argillaceous condition is the result of decalcification.