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Earlier News
March 2004. Funding for the analysis and publication of the Raised Beach Mapping Project has been approved. This work, due for completion in 2005, will provide a comprehensive account of the geological survey and the results of on-going analysis of environmental, micropalaeontological and sediment samples taken during the project. Preliminary results and a project overview will be puiblished in the forcoming Archaeology International magazine.
October 2003. Work has begun on the restoration of the Boxgrove site in accordance with plans produced by the project team (click above images for views of the ongoing work). Following the purchase earlier this year of Quarry 1 using ALSF funds, negotiations between the project, English Heritage and West Sussex County Council have produced a workable programme of restoration which will both achieve the aims of protecting the archaeology and creating new habitats while also allowing continuated excavation within parts of the quarry. The first phase of this work commenced in mid-October with the arrival of earth moving machinery on the site. For the next few months these will be employed in the movement of tonnes of gravel to reshape the quarry, ameliorating the steep sides and sealing the archaeology beneath 3-4m of protective sediment. However, in the locale immediately surrounding the hominid finds, the earth-movements will actually increase the area of sediment open to further excavation.
UCL will continue to monitor the restoration process and manage the site through the Boxgrove Project. Once the major landscaping is completed and the site covered with topsoil, planting will begin in order to establish a variety of new woodland, pasture and aquatic habitats. In the final phase of the restoration, infrastructure required to support excavations will be put in place as the first stage towards the establishment of a permanent field research centre at the site.
March 2003. English Heritage announced on May 13th 2003 that the Boxgrove Quarry was to be bought for the nation, in a move which will protect the site from future burial or destruction. Plans drawn up by the Boxgrove Project for the partial restoration and future development of a field centre at the site will then begin to be implemented as part of a management agreement between English Heritage and the UCL team. It is then envisaged that the Institute of Archaeology, UCL will closely manage the site during the restoration and replanting of the quarry and then continue to direct excavations at the site in the coming years. The restoration plans include widening the open area around the hominid locality, allowing further areas of this rich and important site to be excavated. The plans ensure that Boxgrove will continue to contribute to the study of early man as well as providing and important educational resource and regional focus for Palaeolithic/Pleistocene field research. Click HERE for restoration plans.
September 2002. The 2002-2003 season of the Raised Beach Mapping Project is ongoing. To date over 40 sites on the Sussex Coastal Plain have been investigated.
June 2002. Through preliminary mapping the 40m (Goodwood-Slindon) raised beach has now been formally traced along a 26km stretch. The beach delimits the northern extent of the Sussex Coastal Plain between Arundel and Westbourne Common and along the central portion of its course is overlain by fine-grained sediments. At the limits of its extent the beach outcrops as a visible surface spread of rounded flint cobbles.
May 2002. The important archaeological deposits of the Slindon Formation, including the palaeosol Unit 4c, have now been traced by borehole over 13km outside the original Boxgrove site. These deposits have been identified for the first time at localities west of the River Lavant. The sediments here are locally well developed, undecalcified and exceptionally preserved.
December 2001. A hitherto unknown suite of organic deposits has been discovered within the Slindon Estate. These deposits preserve pollen and macroscopic plant remains and are a chronostratigraphic equivalent of the palaeosol at the Boxgrove site. Analysis of the organic remains supports the hypothesis that these sediments were lain down at the end of the Boxgrove interglacial.
September 2001. Fragments of mammalian fauna, ostracods and foraminifera have been extracted from samples taken during fieldwork. Future analysis of these sediments and the valuable paleoenvironmental evidence they preserve will enable lateral variation in the fully marine, tidal flat and terrestrial environments of the Slindon Formation to be documented.
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Latest News
May 2004. Landscaping restoration work in the Boxgrove quarry has been completed ahead of schedule. This has allowed heavy machinery to leave site in good time for the first phase of ecological restoration to begin. Grass sowing, using an approved Countryside Stewardship mixture, was undertaken and germination appears successful across the site. The Devil's Ditch (an important Iron Age entrenchment forming the southern boundary of the site) has been cleared as part of the initial phase of woodland improvement. Sheep from the Goodwood Estate, shepherded by Nick Page, will begin to graze the site in early August, by which time the site will be included within the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. Within three years it is hoped to replace this flock with a small herd of Sussex cattle.
Architect Richard Atkinson has been commissioned to draw up plans for the
proposed field centre and a provisional ground plan has been lain out at the
site. The first phase of development - providing water, electric and telephone
services to the site - is currently being addressed. With the provision of
services and some temporary on-site accommodation, the first phase of renewed
archaeological excavation will begin in Summer 2005.
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