Abstract
ALTHOUGH it is more than sixty years since the late Sir William Boyd Dawkins brought to light evidence of the presence of man during the Upper Palæolithic period in the north Midland region of England, it was not until Mr. A. Leslie Armstrong's investigations in the cave and other deposits of the area in a series of systematic researches, which began in 1921, that it became possible to establish a chronological succession in human occupation here in the course of the palæolothic age, and its relation to phases of the Ice Age. The results of these investigations wore surveyed by Mr. Armstrong in his Wilde Lecture before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on March 14. In dealing with the earlier evidence of occupation, he pointed out that until three years ago it had not been known that the range of Lower Palæolithic man extended to the northern Midlands, but intensive research directed to the contents of the glacial drift and old river terrace gravels of the Trent and its tributaries had provided evidence of his presence there in the form of hand-axes of flint and other artefacts, representing all the Lower Palæolithic cultures. Excavations in the Pin Hole Cave, Creswell, revealed three zones of occupation in Mousterian times, including two cold periods. Mr. Armstrong's Trent Valley researches indicate that the lower terrace gravels of the rivor approximate in time to the second Mousterian occupation of the cave, and that they were laid down during one, or possibly both, of the cold periods recorded in the cave. Rock shelters in the Creswell gorge and neighbouring valleys and habitation sites on the Lincolnshire cliff, covered by solifluxion deposits, indicate that man lived in these regions while events which mark the final glaciation of England were active in the east, west and north of the region; therefore human occupation of the north Midland area throughout palæolithic times can now be demonstrated.
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Palæolithic Man in Northern England. Nature 143, 512 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143512a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143512a0