Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Clactonian elephant butchery site, Southfleet Road, Ebbsfleet, associated with contemporary palaeo-environmental remains, and with another large contemporary lithic scatter 30m to the south, (south of Tr D).

Location accurate to 2m based on available information.

Monument Types

• BUTCHERY SITE (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• LITHIC SCATTER (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC (at some time))
• LITHIC WORKING SITE (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)

Associated Finds

• FLAKE (Undated)
• AMPHIBIAN REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• BUTCHERED ANIMAL REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• CORE (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• FISH REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• INVERTEBRATE REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• MAMMAL REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• OSTRACOD REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• POLLEN (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• SMALL MAMMAL REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)
• VERTEBRATE REMAINS (Lower Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 150001 BC)

Full description

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The elephant butchery site comprises the remnants of the skeleton of one large adult male elephant (the extinct straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus) associated with an undisturbed scatter of (mostly refitting) flint artefacts. The artefacts comprise flakes, cores and flake-tools attributable to the Clactonian lithic industry, and there is also a broken hammerstone. The site is dated to early in the Hoxnian interglacial (MIS 11), c. 400,000 BP. Other mammalian remains found nearby include deer, bovid and rhino, and there are also a wide range of small vertebrates, as well as ostracods and molluscs, in a nearby contemporary horizon (the tufaceous channel). There is also a large contemporary lithic scatter 30m to the south, (south of Tr D), with much larger quantities of flakes, cores and flake-tools, all of them technologically identical to those associated with the elephant, and likewise attributable to the Clactonian lithic industry. There are two major publications on the site (1, 2). The first of these (1) is a preliminary report. This is superseded by the second major monograph (2), which includes a revised stratigraphic framework.

Location accurate to 2m based on available information.

<1> Wenban-Smith F.F et al, 2006, The Clactonian elephant butchery Site at Southfleet Road, Ebbsfleet, UK (Article in serial). SKE16088.

<2> Oxford Archaeology, 2013, The Ebbsfleet Elephant, Excavations at Southfleet Road, Swanscombe, in advance of High Speed 1, 2003-4 (Monograph). SKE53196.

<3> Oxford Archaeology, 2013, The Ebbsfleet Elephant, Excavations at Southfleet Road, Swanscombe, in advance of High Speed 1, 2003-4 (Monograph). SKE53196.

Sources and further reading

Related records