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RESEARCH AND CONSERVATION FRAMEWORK FOR THE BRITISH PALAEOLITHIC The Prehistoric Society April 2008 Research and Conservation Framework for the British Palaeolithic Summary The vibrancy of multi-disciplinary Palaeolithic archaeology that was identified in the first research frameworks document has continued to grow, resourced through a radically different funding landscape and facilitated by new research agendas for archaeology and the natural environment. Building upon themes identified in 1999, four primary research themes and eight strategic research and conservation themes have been identified. Primary Research Themes Strategic Research and Conservation Themes Hominin Environments and Climate Drivers Areas Hominin Demographies: the Palaeoecology of Understanding the Record Hominin Colonisation and Settlement Processes How We Became Human: Social, Cultural and Dating Frameworks Economic Change Sharing Human Origins: Developing Curation and Conservation New Audiences Dealing with Development Professional Training Education Collections and Records Enhancement Introduction: Considerable advances have been made in all areas of Palaeolithic research since the 1999 document, as The Wider Context was shown at a specially convened meeting held in Peterborough in March 2006. For this reason, and Over the last decade, English Heritage has instigated because fundamental changes to the funding the development of Regional Research Frameworks landscape have occurred since 1999, the framework for archaeology, and has acted responsively to is ripe for revision. proposals for period-based strategies. The first such This document covers England and Wales, since document for Palaeolithic and Mesolithic convincing traces of Palaeolithic archaeology are, as archaeology in Britain was published in 19991,in yet, absent from Scotland and Ireland. The recognition that the Palaeolithic period was largely Welsh/English border is a product of the last few ‘missing out’ in discussions of national research thousand years and is of no bearing on the priorities and funding issues. The document played Palaeolithic. Although Wales has a specific research an essential role in outlining what the Palaeolithic agenda, Palaeolithic scholars commonly integrate community had achieved to that point, what it England and Wales within wider concerns and the wanted to achieve and how the procurement of continuation of this practice is encouraged, funding was perceived. particularly through the collaboration of English English Heritage recommends that research Heritage and Natural England with Cadw and the frameworks are periodically reviewed and updated. Countryside Council for Wales. 1Research Frameworks for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Britain and Ireland. A Report by the Working Party for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Annual Day Meeting and the Council of The Prehistoric Society. July 1999. Working Party Members: C.S. Gamble, P.A. Mellars, F. Healy, J. Wymer, S. Aldhouse-Green, N. Ashton, N. Barton, A. Lawson, P. Pettitt 1 The importance of practising Palaeolithic current funding and research landscape. Unlike archaeology within the context of Quaternary other periods and archaeological disciplines the science is reflected in the composition of the Palaeolithic has not before united as a formally Working Group, which comprises Palaeolithic defined interest group. It has, however, benefited archaeologists, faunal specialists, geologists, considerably from non-formalised collaborations geographers, dating specialists, curators, museum within the Quaternary world, particularly through and education staff, and representatives of profes- unifying bodies such as the QRA, the Prehistoric sional bodies such as Natural England, English Society, the Lithic Studies Society, and the Heritage, the Quaternary Research Association Palaeolithic-Mesolithic research meetings hosted by (QRA), the Geologists’ Association, the National the British Museum. Oceanographic Centre, the Prehistoric Society, the The research themes identified by the Working British Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Group, which are outlined below, provide clear and Museum Wales. The Quaternary community should ongoing means of maintaining the collective synergy be proud of the significant levels of interdisciplinary of Palaeolithic archaeologists and Quaternary collaboration in the study of the Pleistocene, which scientists. We share many common interests, which in Britain had its infancy with the work of Buckland cut across the delineated domains of institutions in the 1820s and as a tradition goes back to the work such as English Heritage, Natural England, of Prestwich and Evans and the professionalisation universities and national and regional museums. of archaeology in the mid-19th century. Such strengths can have enormous benefit to Our understanding of the climate, environments research, conservation, education and outreach if and faunal communities of the Pleistocene is, at the deployed innovatively, and the themes that follow beginning of the 21st century, unparalleled among should maximise this benefit. pre-Holocene periods of Earth history. Financial Wider research guidance is now in place at a resources unimagined in 1999, such as the national level. The broadened remit of the recently Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) and formed Natural England (previously English Nature) NERC EFCHED (Environmental Factors in the allows for the active incorporation of landscape and Chronology of Human Evolution and Dispersal) education themes in its agenda, focusing more programme, large-scale research projects such as the widely than purely site-by-site management plans. Leverhulme Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Regional Archaeological Research Frameworks foster project (AHOB), and new discoveries ranging from a research culture among curators and commercial some of the earliest traces of hominin2 activity in contractors as well as the wider archaeological Europe to the first examples of Upper Palaeolithic community, and research foci should ideally be wide cave art, have forced a significant revision of the and inclusive, not restricted to academics. British Palaeolithic and its international significance. Quaternary researchers and professional bodies The multidisciplinary Stage 3 Project, directed from should present a united front on Pleistocene matters. Cambridge, was a notable achievement (van Andel PPG16 (on archaeology and planning) and PPS9 and Davies 2003). In addition, NERC has funded a (on biodiversity and geological conservation) form £3.4 million consortium bid focused on human resources that can be implemented in planning responses to abrupt environmental transitions over matters to the benefit of the Palaeolithic. Closer the last 100,000 years, which commenced in January integration with the strategies of the minerals 2008 and involves Royal Holloway, the University of industry and their trade associations is highly Oxford, the Natural History Museum and the desirable, and the Working Group intends this National Oceanographic Centre. Palaeolithic document to help promote strong collaboration. archaeologists have also played a significant role in Fieldwork is critical to the success of Palaeolithic the wider field of human evolution. They co-direct archaeology, and depends on fruitful collaboration the British Academy’s Centenary Project (2003– with the aggregates industry, which provides many of 2010) From Lucy to Language: the Archaeology of the the opportunities for this to happen. Despite this, Social Brain, and play a key role in the major the Working Group has identified few active infrastructure project established in 2000, the Palaeolithic excavations in Britain that could serve to Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies educate students in the basic principles of in Cambridge. Palaeolithic fieldwork. Students tend to learn their Such vibrancy and innovation lie at the very heart fieldwork skills elsewhere and their geology from the of Palaeolithic research. Despite these huge QRA, whereas it would be desirable to have sites achievements, however, we need to be vigilant in which allow combined learning outcomes. The maintaining a high profile for the Palaeolithic in the ‘flagship’ sites have passed or are passing into the 2Hominin: member of the subfamily Homininae and for the purposes of this document an extant or extinct human 2 Fluvial sequences and Palaeolithic archaeology the terrace sequence for the basin as a whole often provides the only means of establishing the age of the Much of the evidence on which our understanding of archaeology. The fluvial sediments may also contain the Palaeolithic is based comes from fluvial sequences. datable materials, either in association with the This can be in the rare situations where artefacts are archaeology or at another location that can be related to preserved in situ as they are covered by sediments the assemblage through the stratigraphic framework deposited in low energy conditions or, more commonly, provided by the fluvial sequence. The Middle in secondary contexts, having been reworked by high Palaeolithic site at Lynford in Norfolk illustrates the energy river systems and deposited as part of the importance of understanding the depositional bedload of the braided rivers which have formed much environment. In this case the human presence is closely of the terraced fluvial archive that is preserved today. linked to the presence of large mammals on the Therefore understanding the depositional regime
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