NHER 54222 (Monument record) - Early human occupation evidence (Happisburgh Site 3)

June 2005.
This site was one of several locations investigated by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project following the discovery in 2000 of a Lower Palaeolithic handaxe in situ within organic pre-Anglian deposits exposed on the Happisburgh foreshore (NHER 35385). This location - designated Happisburgh Site 1 – was excavated by AHOB in 2004, following various trial investigations that had confirmed the stratigraphic context of the find and recovered a number of additional worked flints. This work and subsequent phases of excavation by Leiden University recovered over 300 worked flints as well as clear evidence for the butchery of animal carcases by the human population. Whilst this remains one of the county’s more significant sites the environmental and archaeological evidence nevertheless suggest that it is not as old as initially suggested, most likely representing activity in the warm period immediately prior to the Anglian glaciation; that is, around half a million years ago. Several other locations along the coast between Happisburgh and Ostend were investigated by the AHOB project following the initial excavation at Happisburgh Site 1, with sections cleaned and test pits opened in order to establish the site’s wider context. This work resulted in the recovery of artefact material, faunal remains and environmental evidence at two additional sites. One of these sites, now known as Happisburgh Site 2 (NHER 55744) was subject to only minimal further work, the other, designated Happisburgh Site 3, was the site in question and would go on to produce evidence of national significance.

EXCAVATIONS 2005-2011

To date the Ancient Human Occuapation of Britain Project has completed eight separate seasons of fieldwork at Happisburgh 3:

June 2005. Excavation.
Excavation of Trench A through fluvial sands and gravels.
19 worked flint flakes recovered.

June 2006. Excavation.
Excavation of Trench B through fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts. Large scale sieving and sampling programme undertaken.
60 worked flints recovered including 3 flake tools, 56 flakes and 1 core.

June 2007. Excavation.
Excavation of Trenches C/A and C through fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts. Large scale sieving and sampling programme undertaken.
59 worked flints recovered including 8 flake tools, 49 flakes and 2 cores.

September 2008. Excavation.
Excavation of Trenches D, E and F through fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts. Large scale sieving and sampling programme undertaken.
19 worked flints recovered including 1 flake tool and 18 flakes.

June 2009. Excavation.
Excavation of Trenches G and H through fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts. Large scale sieving and sampling programme undertaken.
8 worked flints recovered including 1 flake tool and 7 flakes.

May-June 2010. Excavation.
Excavation of Trenches J, K and L through fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts. Large scale sieving and sampling programme undertaken.
6 worked flint flakes recovered.

August-September 2011. Excavation.
Re-excavation of Trenches J and K for new samples from fluvial sands and gravels and laminated silts.
3 worked flints recovered including 1 flake, 1 core and 1 hammerstone.

The artefacts have been recovered from fluvial gravels and laminated estuarine sands and silts that appear to fill a series of stacked, overlapping channels. The sedimentology is consistent with deposition in the lower reaches of a large river, probably in part of an estuary. As during the earlier excavations at Happisburgh 1 the multi-disciplinary work at this site resulted in the recovery of a wide range of environmental evidence, including pollen, plant macrofossils, foraminifera, marine molluscs, beetles and vertebrate remains. The beetles and plant macrofossils indicate a slow-flowing river with wetland environments such as reed-swamp, alder carr, marsh and pools in the immediate vicinity. The pollen recovered from the deposits associated with artefactual material indicates the presence of grassland and conifer-dominated forest in the wider environs of the site. Although the vertebrate remains were fragmentary it was nevertheless possible to Identify the bones of various species including fish, frog/toad, voles, beaver, mouse, mammoth, equid, red deer, extinct elk, deer and bovid. Hyaena coprolites were also present. Overall the vertebrate assemblage is consistent with the local environment indicated by the other evidence recovered. There was no evidence for butchery.

The 174 worked flints recovered to date include unmodified flakes, cores, flake tools and a single hammerstone. Notable characteristics of the assemblage include a predominance of larger flakes with sharp cutting edges and a high proportion of flake tools – both of which suggest that the material had been brought to the site for use, with knapping taking place elsewhere. There is no evidence for the manufacture of handaxes, which is consistent with the apparent date of the assemblage. The artefacts are generally in an unabraded condition suggesting that they are unlikely to have been moved far from where they were originally discarded. The recovery of artefacts from several levels suggests that the site had seen repeated visits.
Various strands of evidence combine to give the likely date of the human occupation at Happisburgh 3. As with the other Happisburgh sites excavated by AHOB the artefacts have been recovered from beneath a glacial deposit known as the Happisburgh Till. As a result the archaeological material must be at least half a million years old, although there is an ongoing debate about whether the Happisburgh Till was lain down during the Anglian glaciation or an earlier glacial event. The likely date of Happisburgh 3 is further constrained by palaeomagnetism and the presence of particular biostratigraphical markers. The palaeomagnetic analysis suggests that the sediments tested formed during one of the periods when the earth’s magnetic field was reversed, the last of which ended around 0.78 million years ago. The biostratigraphical evidence from key plant and animal taxa indicates that activity almost certainly occurred during this most recent period of reversed polarity, that is, between 0.99 and 0.78 million years ago. The possible date of the site can be refined further by considering the evidence for its environment and climate. Temperature estimates based on the beetle assemblage and the presence of conifer-dominated woodland are both consistent with activity during a period of cooling climate in the second half of an interglacial cycle. This therefore serves to further constrain the likely date of activity to either Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 21 (866,000-814,000 years ago) or 25 (970,000-936,000 years ago) - the two main warmer periods known to have occurred between 0.99 and 0.78 million years ago. Either date range would make this by far the earliest evidence for the human occupation of northern Europe, significantly predating Happisburgh Site 1 (which appears to be much more recent than initially thought) and at least 100,000 older than the site discovered on the Suffolk coast at Pakefield.

Although much of what is now the East Anglian coastline was landlocked at this time, it is believed that the area around Happisburgh lay on the margins of a large embayment at the edge of the North Sea. Significantly the excavated gravels have a non-local component, the nature of which suggests deposition by the ancestral River Thames, with a contribution from the Bytham River. Most reconstructions of the country’s palaeogeography depict these ancient river crossing the region some distance to the south of Happisburgh, flowing out into the North Sea via what is now the Suffolk coast. It therefore now appears that this was not originally the case, with a confluence of these rivers potentially entering the North Sea in the vicinity of Happisburgh. The Bytham was eventually obliterated by the Anglian glaciation around 450,000 years ago, when vast icesheets covered much of the region.

The evidence from Happisburgh Site 3 is not just significant for its early date. The site provides the first evidence for the human occupation of northern forests during the Early Pleistocene, demonstrating that the hominids of this era were capable of surviving novels environments as global climate began to deteriorate towards the end of an interglacial. It is possible that the Early Pleistocene human were drawn to this location as it presented a mosaic of resource-rich habitats, including a large tidal river, freshwater wetland areas, open grassland floodplains and the surrounding conifer-dominated forest. At present there is little else that we can say about these ancient human. The age of the site does however suggest that they may have been a species known as Homo antecessor, which is known to have been present in the Atapuerca region of Spain around 0.8 million years ago. In 2013 human footprints were found preserved in the estuary sediments approximately 100m to the south-east of this site (NHER 60000) - a remarkable discovery that may provide a glimpse of the early humans that had been present at Happisburgh 3.

A full account of the work at Happisburgh 3 is awaited. The above summary is largely derived from published article (S1), which details the results of excavations undertaken between 2005 and 2008. Summaries of the AHOB excavations at Happisburgh can also be found in (S2), (S3) and (S4). See also local press articles (S5).

P. Watkins (HES), 14 July 2014.