Expanding our horizons: an exploration of hominin landscape use in the Lower Palaeolithic of Britain and the question of upland home bases or lowland living sites.

Abstract

The majority of Lower Palaeolithic assemblages are recovered from lowland fluvial locations, and hence most interpretation is based around these. It is clear, however,
that these represent only a small fraction of the hominin landscape and this bias is potentially limiting our understanding of hominin organisation to only a single facet of behaviour. While recent authors have recognised the importance of upland sites, and other non-fluvial contexts, research is currently limited to highly specific studies (such as Boxgrove), and often fail to extend the purview to incorporate the wider landscape. Consequently we are still a long way from answering basic questions such as: how and why were hominids utilising particular locations? How, if at all, does behaviour respond to landscape context? Is the same pattern seen in continental
Europe?

This research applies a landscape approach to the British Palaeolithic, combining a technological, typological and chaîne opératoire methodology to determine assemblage signatures for a variety of landscape types (lowland riverine, lacustrine, grassland plains and uplands). An exploratory Geographical Information Systems (GIS)approach is applied to the upland study areas to gain a better understanding of settlement structuring and how behaviour responds to landscape context. The results are then considered in terms of behavioural variation, site choice, specialisation and provisioning across the landscape.