Beeches Pit

Beeches Pit is a Middle Pleistocene archaeological site in Suffolk, East Anglia, UK dating to about 400,000 years. Apart from a great deal of palaeoenvironmental evidence investigated by colleagues (see Preece et al. below), the site has yielded many traces of human activity, including evidence of the repeated use of fire. The area was also a focus of stone-working.  Several Acheulean hand-axes have been found, in addition to a great deal of knapping debris..

Publications                                               (see home page for pdf files)

Gowlett, J.A.J. 2006.  The early settlement of northern Europe: Fire history in the context of climate change and the social brain.  In : H. de Lumley (ed.) Climats, Cultures et sociétés aux temps préhistoriques, de l’apparition des Hominidés jusqu’au Néolithique.  C.R. Palevol. 5, 1-2, 299-310. (2005 online).

Gowlett, J.A.J. Hallos, J., Hounsell, S., Brant, V. & Debenham, N.C. 2005. Beeches Pit – archaeology, assemblage dynamics and early fire history of a Middle Pleistocene site in East Anglia, UK. Eurasian Prehistory 3,2:3-38

Preece, R.C., Gowlett, J.A.J., Parfitt, S.A., Bridgland, D.R., Lewis, S.G. 2006. Humans in the Hoxnian: habitat, context and fire use at Beeches Pit, West Stow, Suffolk, UK. Journal of Quaternary Science 21,485-496.

Gowlett, J.A.J. and Hallos, J. 2000. Beeches Pit: overview of the Archaeology.  Quaternary Research Association Handbook for the millennial excursion to East Anglia. (ed.) S.G. Lewis.  QRA.

Gowlett, J.A.J., Bell, D.A. and Hallos, J. 2000.  The Archaeology of Beeches Pit. Abstract of Palaeoanthropology Meeting, Journal of Human Evolution.

Gowlett, J.A.J., Chambers, J. C., Hallos, J. & Pumphrey, T.R.J. 1998. Beeches Pit: first views of the archaeology of a Middle Pleistocene site in Suffolk, UK, in European context.  In: Ullrich, H. (ed.) Papers presented at the International Symposium ‘Lifestyles and survival strategies in Pliocene and Pleistocene hominids’. Anthropologie (Brno) 36,1-2, 91-97.

Andresen, S.A., Bell, D.A., Hallos, J., Pumphrey, T.R.J. and Gowlett, J.A.J. 1997. Approaches to the analysis of evidence from the Acheulean site of Beeches Pit, Suffolk, England.   In Sinclair, A., Slater, E. and Gowlett, J. (eds) Archaeological Sciences 1995. Proceedings of a conference on the application of scientific techniques to the study of archaeology. Oxbow Monographs 64.  Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp 389-394.

Gowlett, J.A.J. Beeches Pit, 1997/98.  In Martin, E., Pendleton, C. and Plouviez, J. Archaeology in Suffolk 1998. Proceedings  of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History.

Below: selection of flake tools from Beeches Pit