Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Three Palaeolithic handaxes from Preston Hall Ragstone Quarry, Aylesford, held at Maidstone Museum. Two of them collected by S Sills in 1891, and the other by WH Bensted in 1930

Monument Types

• FINDSPOT (Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 40001 BC)

Associated Finds

• HANDAXE (Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 40001 BC)
• HANDAXE (Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 40001 BC)
• HANDAXE (Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic - 500000 BC to 40001 BC)

Full description

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Several Palaeolithic handaxes held at Maidstone Museum came from pits near Preston Hall, Aylesford, on the southwest side of the main Medway river, documented by Roe (1), and then examined in 2005 for the Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project (2). Two of these, a ficron and a fine sub-cordate (both collected by S Sills in August 1891) are marked with their precise latitude and longitude (S Sills was a surveyor by trade - F Wenban-Smith personal observation), allowing their find-spot to be accurately located in the west face of the well-known Ragstone quarry south of Preston Hall (3). The other (a pointed specimen) was found by WH Bensted in 1930, and is marked "Medway Gravel overlying Kentish Rag". This site corresponds with the locality specified as "Quarry, Aylesford" in the Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project (4, 5).

<1> Roe, D.A., 1968, Gazetteer of British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Sites, p138 (Monograph). SWX6570.

<2> Wenban-Smith F. F., Bates M.R and Marshall G., 2007, Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project Final Report: The Palaeolithic Resource in the Medway Gravels (Kent) (Unpublished document). SKE29351.

<3> Cook W.H, 1923, Excursions [III - Geological Excursion to Lower Greensand Beds and Pleistocene Drifts at Aylesford]. (Article in serial). SKE51481.

<4> Wessex Archaeology, 1993, The Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project, Report No.2: The South West and South of the Thames [Vol. I - text], M 4.8 (Monograph). SWX6569.

<5> Wessex Archaeology, 1993, The Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project: maps for Report No. 2, Regions 4 & 1, The South West and South of the Thames [Vol II - maps], M4.8 (Unpublished document). SKE12023.

Sources and further reading