1 Deposition and provenance of the Early Pleistocene Siliceous Member in 2 Westbury Cave, Somerset, England 3 4 Neil F. Adams a,b,*,1, Ian Candy a, Danielle C. Schreve a, René W. Barendregt c 5 6 a Centre for Quaternary Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway 7 University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK 8 b Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, 9 Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK 10 c Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, T1K 3M4, Canada 11 12 * Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected]) 13 14 1 Present address: Centre for Palaeobiology Research, School of Geography, 15 Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK 1 16 Abstract 17 The Early Pleistocene is an important interval in the Quaternary period as a time not 18 only of climatic and environmental change, but also of key events in human 19 evolution. However, knowledge of this period in northwest Europe is hampered by 20 the limited extent of deposits of this age. Westbury Cave in the Mendip Hills of 21 Somerset preserves an understudied example of fossil-bearing Early Pleistocene 22 sediments, with rare potential to inform our understanding of British Early 23 Pleistocene stratigraphy and landscape evolution outside the East Anglian Crag 24 Basin. This study identifies the processes responsible for deposition of the Early 25 Pleistocene Siliceous Member in Westbury Cave, thereby aiding taphonomic and 26 palaeoenvironmental interpretations of associated fossil assemblages. New 27 excavations revealed over ten metres of Siliceous Member stratigraphy, dominated 28 by fine-grained silts/clays with interbedded sands and gravels, interpreted as being 29 deposited within a subterranean lake or flooded conduit with fluvial input.