Frontiers and route‐ways from Europe: the Early Middle Palaeolithic of Britain

ABSTRACT Britain has a rich and well‐documented earlier Palaeolithic record, which provides a unique resource to investigate population dynamics and the cultural and geographical links with north‐west Europe during the Middle Pleistocene. This paper examines a newly enhanced dataset for the distribution of finds locations and their geological context. Using artefact types as proxies for different populations it contrasts the Lower Palaeolithic and Early Middle Palaeolithic records. New methods are devised to mitigate for the clear bias towards handaxes in collection history. Taking account of this bias, the results suggest differences in distribution between Lower Palaeolithic and Early Middle Palaeolithic populations, with the latter more heavily concentrated in the lower reaches of large southern and eastern rivers. Drawing on recent studies on the palaeogeography of the Channel and southern North Sea Basin, the paper suggests that this restricted distribution reflects short‐lived occupation by small groups of early Neanderthals in late MIS 8, who eventually became locally extinct because of isolation caused by rising sea levels in the first warm sub‐stage of MIS 7.