Display Case 1: Additional Recordings
Audio Transcript
The first hunters lived during the Lower Palaeolithic age, which is from 2 Greek words palaios - old, and lithos - stone; meaning Old Stone Age. In Europe it spanned from circa 900,000 to circa 45,000 BC
Throughout the palaeolithic age people lived by hunting mammals, birds and fish and gathering wild vegetable foods. These varied according to changes in climate. Where available, caves were used for shelter. Small groups of hunter-gatherers probably frequented the tropical forests of Britain during the warm interglacials which occurred between severe periods of cold, known as glaciations. Tools made from stone were mostly handaxes and flakes.
At the important site of Swanscombe, south of London, 2 handaxe cultures have been found. While they may have been contemporary it seems the Clactonian, named after the typesite of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, lived in thick forests along river banks during the Hoxnian interglacial between 250,000 and 200,000 BC. The second group, called Acheulian, possibly exploited more open forest during the cooler end of the interglacial.
The Clactonian was primarily a flake industry using hammer stones to manufacture heavy flakes and pebble choppers. Acheulians used a soft hammer of bone or wood to make their tools. The hundreds of handaxes found at Swanscombe during gravel-digging operations early this century belong to this culture.
Both groups of hunters trapped deer and other animals in swampy ground where they could be easily killed with wooden spears and stones.
There is one image. An illustration above the text of naked men with spears and rocks hunting running deers. It is 40 centimetres high by 60 centimetres wide and brown and yellow in colour with simple lines and shading.
Audio Transcript
Excavation has revealed the earliest levels of deposition – called Lower Gravels and Loam – contained Clactonian flakes and choppers. The Middle Gravel levels contained Archeulian handaxes and fragments of a female skull – the first Briton known. The Upper Gravels were laid down in the subsequent glaciation.
There is one image. A wide rectangle diagram above the text with corresponding wavy horizontal or diagonal black lines, indicating the levels deposition found during excavation at the site. At the base is Sand, followed by Lower Gravel, Lower Loam, Lower Middle Gravel, Upper Middle Gravel, Upper Loam, and at the top, Upper Gravel.
Audio Transcript
Most common of all the animals at Swanscombe was the Clacton fallow deer Dama clactoniana. Archaeological evidence suggests only stags were hunted and females and young animals ignored, the first indication of environmental control. From the size of the antlers, we can deduce that Swanscombe was inhabited during the winter months before the antlers were shed.
The Auroch or the Giant ox Bos primigenius was among the ancestors of modern cattle. A huge beast, over 2 metres at the shoulder, the auroch was more common in the Middle Gravels than in the lower levels.
Merck’s rhinoceros Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis and the Steppe rhinoceros D. hermitoechus inhabited western Europe during much of the occupation of Swanscombe.
Merck’s rhinoceros, the larger of the 2 species, stood 2 metres high and about 3 metres long.
The Forest Elephant Elephas antiquus lived in Europe, Africa and Asia during the warmer interglacial periods of the Pleistocene. It stood over 4 metres at the shoulder. Remains are abundant in the Lower Gravels but decrease by the Middle Gravel levels.
A wide range of other animals were hunted, including wolf, cave lion, marten, cave bear, horse, pig, giant deer, red and roe deer, giant beaver and smaller animals like hare and lemming.
There are 4 images. They are illustrations in a vertical column of the main animals described, the deer, the auroch, the rhinoceros and the elephant.
Audio Transcript
Although there is evidence that wood and bone were made into weapons and tools few have survived. Early hunter-gatherers fashioned most of their tool-kit from stone, usually flint or chert.
They used either a hammer stone or hammer made of bone or wood to knock flakes from a core. This is called percussion method. Some heavy flakes had smaller flakes removed to provide a sharper edge. This is called secondary flaking.
Flakes were used as choppers or scrapers for butchering or wood working. Cores were made into hand axes by flaking chips from a core until the right shape was obtained. Hand axes were the predominant tool of the early hunters.
There are 3 images. They are square illustrations in a row above the text of hands fashioning weapons, and the last is of a woman using a weapon to butcher a small animal.