A Collection of Early Upper Palaeolithic Artefacts from Beedings, near Pulborough, West Sussex, and the Context of Similar Finds from the British Isles

Abstract

This paper provides a first formal description of a collection of lithic artefacts unearthed during the building of a house called Beedings on a scarp crest near Pulborough in West Sussex.The discovery was probably made in 1900. The collection is very obviously multi-period, but it includes the largest group of Early Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from south-eastern England. Attributed to this time are leaf-points, end-scrapers, and burins. While recent selection has much reduced the collection it also appears to contain contemporary cores and debitage and evidence for the production of bladelets. In a British context this find is unique and in a European perspective it is one of the richest assemblages attributable to the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician technocomplex. The age of this technocomplex is poorly constrained, but in this paper it is argued to belong to the earliest part of the Upper Palaeolithic, starting earlier than the local Aurignacian. The Upper Palaeolithic material from Beedings is interpreted as having come from a hunting camp situated so as to exploit the extensive views across the western Weald.