Prehistoric Cuxton...

The 2005 discovery of yet more ancient Stone Age tools in Cuxton finally makes the local newspaper...

“When visiting Canon Colson on 24th August, 1889, on entering the gate of the rectory garden I picked up a fine Palaeolithic flint celt which lay upon the bank.” So stated noted Sittingbourne antiquarian (and founder of Rochester Museum) Mr. George Payne in the 1893 edition of the Collectanea Cantiana.

Later, in 1902, Mr. Payne noted that four other flint hand-axes from this same locality had been unearthed, one of which had been found by workmen laying a water main in the carriage drive of the rectory a few feet from the entrance gate.

Things remained this way until the autumn of 1962, when Bexley-based archaeologist Peter Tester was invited (by the Lower Medway Archaeological Research Group) to supervise the excavation of what were thought to be the remains of a Roman building, which had been found just inside the rectory gate close to where the flint tools were discovered.

No Roman material was forthcoming and it was quickly found that the “chalk wall” of the supposed building was nothing more than an exposure of natural chalk deposits.

Drawings of Acheulian tools found by P.J. Tester at Cuxton rectory in 1962

However, Mr. Tester’s initial excavation also uncovered a thin bed of gravel containing 14 fine flint hand-axes and a number of associated flint flakes. Subsequent excavations discovered over 600 Palaeolithic flint artefacts of a type identified as “Acheulian” (1).  

It became clear that the area around the Cuxton rectory site was once used by some of our earliest human ancestors, dating from around the same time as the nearby remains and artefacts associated with “Swanscombe Man” that were found at Barnfield Pit in 1935, and which have recently been shown to be approximately 300,000 years old.

The recovered skull of "Swanscombe Man", (or Woman, as it transpired...)

Monument at Swanscombe Heritage Park commemorating the discovery of Swanscombe Man...

Further excavations made opposite the Rectory in 1984 at 15 Rochester Road, (2) and at 21 Rochester Road in 2005 (3), found similar Acheulian flint tools of the same age...

Acheulian flint hand axe (top) and scraper (above) discovered in Cuxton, 2005. Scale is in cm.

This area of what we now call Cuxton was very different 300,000 years ago, as might be expected! The passage of the late Palaeolithic was a time between two of the periodic ice ages of the Pleistocene era, known as the “Purfleet Interglacial”. Although the geology of the Medway Valley is the subject of much conjecture, it seems that the area of the Rectory then would have been close to the confluence of a stream running down what we today call Bush Road, to meet the River Medway. The nature of the gravel deposits in the area of the Rectory suggests that the ancient shoreline there was about 15 meters above today’s sea level, with the river being deeper and much wider than it is today.

In terms of climate, the summers of interglacial Cuxton then were slightly warmer than today (about 3°C) and the winters slightly cooler. The hominids that lived in the Thames and Medway areas seemed to keep to the coastline terraces, possibly because inland areas were heavily forested. 

300,000 years ago, Cuxton's inhabitants would have lived around - and even hunted - creatures such as the extinct Straight-Tusked elephant (pictured right)...

The fossil record in Southern England (4) from the period also seems to suggest that some of the local fauna - brown bears, wolves, and hyenas - were not animals you would wish to confront in dark, dense woodlands. However, other large animals known to exist in the area at the time (such as lynx, lions and even straight-tusked elephants, wild cattle and horses) needed more open ground, and it was in territory such as this that early hunters probably would have operated.

Fossils of early hominids are scarce. Unfortunately, as former Rector of Cuxton Revd. R.A. Smith (in his 1964 booklet "The Church and Village of Cuxton") recounts:

"...Those who investigated the first find of hand-axes (in 1902) were also told of an ancient skeleton that had been dug up on the hill above the church. The then Station-Master, (Charles Hall), a student of archaeology, was able to examine the bones and reported that the skull was of a distinctly early type. Unfortunately authority, in the person of the local coroner, intervened and insisted that they be buried in the churchyard. this was done without knowing the place. Knowing what we do now we would give a lot to see that skull..."

The nature of our early ancestors such as Swanscombe Man or those who made the flint tools at Cuxton is the subject of much debate and guesswork. Current thinking believes the makers of the Acheulian tools at Cuxton to be representatives of Homo Heidelburgensis, the common ancestor of both modern humans Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal Man (Homo Neanderthalis).

Fossilised skull of Homo Heidelburgensis (left) and reconstruction...

Homo Heidelburgensis, if you met them, would be unlikely to consider you as their grandchild 10,000 times removed, however. Instead, they would probably consider you to be lunch.

It is thought that they were powerfully built, much stronger than modern humans, and certainly hunted animals to eat. There is evidence to suggest that they used fire and made shelters, that they looked after their old and weak, and may have had a rudimentary language.

At Cuxton, our distant ancestors were attracted to the flints that were washed out of the coastline by the action of the river. It seems they lived and made their tools where the latter were discovered. Flint shards were found with the tools and the remains of their prey (comprising of bone fragments of wild horses, bison and even elephants) were identified (2).

Many of the flint artefacts found were quite large. If we consider that Cuxton’s “Heidelburgers” were most likely hunter-gatherers, it seems feasible that stashes of the larger tools would be left in favoured parts of their territory, places from which they could easily be retrieved to process nearby “kills”.

This seems to be borne out by the recent discovery of a cache of over 800 similar flint tools on nearby Frindsbury Hill, which were discovered in early 2023 during the construction of the new Strood Academy on Commissioners Road. 

Archaeologist Dr. Letty Ingrey with some of the Acheulian tools found at nearby Frindsbury...

It is difficult to imagine that such numbers of similar flint tools, so close to the Cuxton site and of about the same age, were not made by the same hunter-gatherer community.

It is has been suggested that the large tools were more symbolic than practical. However, in times when day-to-day survival must have a difficult and unrelenting struggle, manufacture of such objects would have represented a significant investment of time and effort. I therefore find it difficult to believe they were merely symbolic. Cuxton’s “Heidelburgers” were powerfully built and very strong and, unlike us, they would not have struggled to handle them. Whilst some of their flint tools seem, to us, extremely large and heavy, in strong hands they would have been ideally suited to rendering down large animal carcasses, cutting wood or treating large animal skins. They were perhaps simply the “power tools” of their era.

And why were so many made and then seemingly abandoned? I think it is possible that the caches of flint tools were just the equivalent of modern day tool stores, and that the sheer numbers of tools found simply represent the accumulated output of a small community that occupied their territory for a very long time, possibly for hundreds of generations. Or maybe they just liked making them.

We can only guess. What we do know is that another period of glaciation cycles (the “Devensian”) begun around 110,000 years ago, driving out the sparse population of hominids from the British Isles.

The maximum extent of the ice sheet of the most recent ("Devensian") Ice age...

Although even at its maximum extent (around 20,000 years ago), the Devensian ice sheet did not reach down as far as the south of England, the climate would have be brutally cold here until the end of the Pleistocene and the final retreat of the glaciers just 15,000 years ago.

It is thought that hominids in the shape of our direct ancestors, Homo Sapiens, returned permanently to the British Isles around 9000 years ago, although small numbers of both Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals were known to have temporarily inhabited parts of England during earlier (50,000-30,000 years ago) brief warm periods during the Devensian.

After the last ice age, Britain was still joined to the European continent via a low-lying region called “Doggerland”, which joined the east coast of England to the Netherlands and the western coast of Germany. Rising sea levels flooded this peninsula around 6500 years ago, turning Britain into an island.

How "Doggerland" gradually vanished under the North Sea after the last Ice Age...

By then, Mesolithic humans were well-established in the Cuxton area, as evidenced by the discovery of large numbers of flint spear heads, arrow-heads, hand-axes and other flint relics in the Ranscombe area by local Cuxton antiquarian Dave May. 

Mesolithic flint tools found at Ranscombe...

These tools are smaller and seem (to us) far more practical in nature than the larger Acheulian ones of Palaeolithic times. The site was clearly a place that was long-inhabited - over 15,000 flint artefacts have been found, including innumerable flint flakes that demonstrate that the flint tools were made where they were found.

We know that at least some parts of the Cuxton area were heavily forested at this time (probably with yew, ash, elm, birch, lime and oak) and that the Medway River was shallower than today. Evidence of this can be seen from the remains of tree stumps (another Dave May discovery) that can found on the banks of the Medway at very low tides near the M2/ Channel Tunnel Rail Link bridge. 

Aerial view of the Medway M2 Bridge area: the dark spots on the river bank are old tree stumps...

Ancient tree stump on the Cuxton banks of the Medway...

However, it is possible that, given the sandy nature of the soil in the north-eastern area of the Ranscombe reserve where the Mesolithic camp site existed, the tree cover was far less extensive. An open area here would have commanded excellent views along the Medway valley and would have been of great strategic value when it came to defending territory against rival tribes.

Cuxton’s Mesolithic residents were also probably hunter-gathers, but in time, it seems possible that the “megafauna” (elk, deer, wild cattle, etc.) numbers began to fall through hunting as they could not be replenished from mainland Europe as a result of the submergence of Doggerland. It is also possible that an influx of migrants from Eastern Europe around 6000 years ago also brought Neolithic farming practices to Britain.

Whatever the cause, it was at this time that a large of amount of deforestation took place across the south of England, with the cleared land being used for the planting of crops. This, in turn, led to communities living in permanent settlements, rather than the semi-nomadic lifestyle of hunter gatherers living in makeshift shelters.

Evidence of a Bronze age settlement at nearby Cobham has been found, represented by pits, post holes and ditches, recorded during excavation work in association with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 1998.

In Cuxton, one of the oldest “field names” is Barrow (or Borrow) Hill at Upper Bush and indeed, aerial photography has revealed what looks like a burial barrow, possibly of late Neolithic or early Bronze Age origin (around 2000BC). This may have been linked to the nearby Cobham community.

Excavation work in 2021 undertaken as part of the Vineyard Farms winery application (and conducted by contractors commissioned by the applicants) uncovered skeletal remains of at least one individual, along with around 50 struck flints and associated flakes as well as some shards of decorated pottery consistent with the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age period (5, 6). 

An archaeologist uncovers Bronze Age human remains on Barrow Hill at Upper Bush (a skull, at centre)...

These finds were dismissed as insignificant and not sufficient to warrant protection of the site from the winery construction.

Unfortunately, it seems as if any further excavation work in the area will only be as a result of the construction of the Vineyard Farms winery complex. The “mitigation strategy” proposed by the developer land-owners MDCV UK Ltd (and as agreed with Medway Council) will be to take photographs of any remains found before the concrete starts pouring.

References:

1)    P. J. Tester,1965, An Acheulian Site at Cuxton.

2)    R. J. Cruze, 1984, Further Investigation of the Acheulian Site at Cuxton.

3)    Francis Wenban-Smith, 2006, Giant Acheulian handaxes.

4)    Mammalian Biostratigraphy of the Later Middle Pleistocene in Britain, by D.C Shrive, UCL.

5)    Phase 1 Archaeological evaluation report, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd, July 2021 (Medway Council Planning Portal ref: 5812490)

6)    Archaeological Desk-based Assessment, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd, July 2021 (Medway Council Planning Portal ref: 5812491)