Swan Valley Community School, Swanscombe

Construction of a new school at Swanscombe, Kent led to discovery and investigation of Boyn Hill terrace fluvial deposits c. 400,000 years old. These proved to be rich in flint artefacts, including numerous handaxes, and also produced faunal remains, including extinct giant deer and elephant. The school construction and archaeological work was carried out in two phases, Phase I directly supported by Kent County Council's Education Department, and Phase II by Wates plc. The co-operation during fieldwork of Wates and the groundworks contractor O'Keefe are gratefully acknowledged.

Fig. 1. Swan Valley School under construction

Swanscombe is well-known as a key locale for Palaeolithic evidence, but the school site was thought on the basis of current geological mapping to be beyond the edge of the mapped Pleistocene deposits that contained the archaeological evidence.

Fig. 2. Swan Valley School location

Archaeological work for Phase I involved systematic test-pitting and sieving of the deposits to build up understanding of the sequence and thickness of deposits across the site, and to investigate the presence and distribution of flint artefacts. Numerous artefacts were found, comprising flint handaxes and (much more abundant) waste flakes from their manufacture.

Fig. 3. Handaxes from Swan Valley School

Phase II of the construction programme took place in 2001, and more detailed investigations were carried out in key artefact-rich locations, and a programme of OSL dating was also undertaken, in conjunction with Jean-Luc Schwenninger of the Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art.

Fig. 4. OSL dating at Swanscombe

As well as these targeted investigations, general monitoring of the foundation trenching was also carried out, leading to the discovery of a tusk of the extinct elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus. The tusk was discovered on Monday 23 July by Gilbert Marshall while observing a mechanical digger excavating a foundation pad. One end was seen in the edge of the foundation hole, and the rest was discovered buried about 50cm beneath the ground-surface beside the hole. The surviving part of the tusk (the tip end) is about 1.5m long. About 15cm was broken off the butt end by the mechanical digger, but the original tusk may have been as long as 3.5m originally.

Fig. 5a and b. Two views of extinct elephant tusk

Facts about Palaeoloxodon antiquus
This species is an extinct form of elephant
It was over twice the size of the largest modern African elephant, standing up to 4m high at the shoulder, and weighing up to 9 tons
It lived in forested environments, eating leafy foliage, twigs, shrubs and grasses
It was only living in England during the warmer, interglacial periods of the last 1.8 million years (the Quaternary geological period), during which the climate oscillated between interglacials and glacials (ice ages)
It became extinct in England about 115,000 years ago, at the beginning of the last ice age.

This is a very exciting find. I was astonished when Gilbert told me about it, since there had been no indication that faunal remains were preserved in that part of the site. This would have been a pretty hefty beast. It would have been over twice the height of a man, and weighed three or four times the weight of an average family car. It is hard to imagine early humans successfully hunting a healthy specimen, but if it was already injured, it could have been killed with wooden spears, and then butchered for its meat with handaxes. It is most likely that it died of natural causes, and that meat was then cut off its carcass with handaxes.

References
Wenban-Smith, F.F. & Bridgland, D.R. 1997. Newly discovered Pleistocene deposits at Swanscombe: an interim report. Lithics 17/18: 3–8.

Wenban-Smith, F.F. & Bridgland, D.R. 2001. Palaeolithic archaeology at the Swan Valley Community School, Swanscombe, Kent. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 67: 219–259.