The British Palaeolithic: Hominin Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World

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Routledge, 2012 - History - 592 pages

The British Palaeolithic provides the first academic synthesis of the entire British Palaeolithic, from the earliest occupation (currently understood to be around 980,000 years ago) to the end of the Ice Age. Landscape and ecology form the canvas for an explicitly interpretative approach aimed at understanding the how different hominin societies addressed the issues of life at the edge of the Pleistocene world.  

Commencing with a consideration of the earliest hominin settlement of Europe, the book goes on to examine the behavioural, cultural and adaptive repertoires of the first human occupants of Britain from an ecological perspective. These themes flow throughout the book as it explores subsequent occupational pulses across more than half a million years of Pleistocene prehistory, which saw Homo heidelbergensis, the Neanderthals and ultimately Homo sapiens walk these shores.   

The British Palaeolithic fills a major gap in teaching resources as well as in research by providing a current synthesis of the latest research on the period. This book represents the culmination of 40 years combined research in this area by two well known experts in the field, and is an important new text for students of British archaeology as well as for students and researchers of the continental Palaeolithic period.

 

Contents

CHAPTER 1 One million years of the British Pleistocene
1
The earliest hominin visitors to Britain 1 ma700 ka BP
10
The hominin occupation of Britain 550300 ka BP
55
CHAPTER 4 Behaviour and society in Lower Palaeolithic Britain 550 ka300 ka BP
143
The Early Middle Palaeolithic 325180 ka BP
209
Landscapes and human environments of the Late Middle Palaeolithic 6035 ka BP
293
The British Early Upper Palaeolithic and the earliest populations of Homo sapiens
373
The Late Upper Palaeolithic 146116 ka BP
423
Notes
502
Bibliography
506
Index
586
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