The John Pull Memorial Lecture this year (12 February 2019), was given by John Skelton of Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society. It was an excellent presentation on excavations of Medieval remains at Hog Croft, Ovingdean, near Brighton.  It appears to be the site of a manorial complex that existed during the Saxon/Norman period.  The intriguing finds from the site included a possible Pilgrim bottle, spurs, apothecary bottle, and what looked suspiciously like a Boy Scout badge.  He concluded with a demonstration of digital photogrammetry techniques for recording 3D models of objects and sites.

The December 2018 edition of the journal is now available on this website: go to the Documents page.  Contents include:

• Possible Neolithic Flint Mines at North End, Findon
• Between the Wet and Dry: Malthouse Field, Sompting in prehistory
• Rough Copse Excavation Report 2017
• A Note on the Pottery from Rough Copse Excavation 2017
• Rough Copse, Rewell Wood Flint Report RC.17
• Major Arthur Cecil Roper and his wife Frances Ann Hubbard
• Who was Madame Jabot?
• A self-guided walk around Beach Town, Littlehampton

This was a fascinating day with Matt Pope. He started by explaining how the Marine Isotope Curve was obtained and how it revealed the extent and frequency of different ice ages going back over a million years. Using the date of a specific archaeological event and the MI curve it is possible to identify the the MI Stage of the event and hence the climate at the time.
More detail here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_isotope_stage

Simple cores and flake stone tools, had been found in Southern Europe dating back at least 1.5 million years. Human activity at Pakefield, Suffolk in the form of butchered bones and sharp fresh, dated to around 750,000 years ago corresponded to MIS19, a short lived warm period, so they did not need to adapt as they moved from the South.  In contrast, at the earlier Happisburgh site in Norfolk, where again lots of cutting tools were found was dated over 850,000 years ago at which time the climate much cooler. These humans must have been sophisticated enough, and used clothing, to survive that climate. 

We moved on to the Acheulian industry characterised by hand axes, the earliest found in Europe was in Spain dated from about 1 million years ago. We discussed which of the hominids had brought this industry to Europe, possibly Homo Heidelbergensis, also the different shapes and symmetries of hand axes and their purpose. 

Matt told us about a cave site in France dating to 550k years ago which showed evidence of primary access to carcasses and refined hand-axe development, in different stratified layers covering MIS 13 , a temperate period, and MIS 12 a long intensely cold period when it could be seen that people had made intensified use of a cave. Possibly these humans had moved from North to South following the animals? 

In the afternoon we moved on to the Middle Palaeolithic in Europe and the Neanderthals. With the number of hominoid species and the DNA evidence of interbreeding what was meant by human was being redefined and Neanderthals should be treated as humans. 

We learned about the pit of bones found in Spain, dating from MIS 11, 420,000 years ago where 30 individuals were found in a pit together, possibly the earliest evidence of symbolic ritual in Europe. MIS 9 events revealed the earliest prepared cores in Europe, and hints of more complex behaviour, including wooden spears and possible stone structures. 

Lots more evidence of Neanderthals sophistication have been establish in Europe predating the arrival of modern humans, some by more than 100,000 years, such as building structures, using fires and burying their dead. Other examples included collecting claws and wings of birds of prey, perforating and decorating shells and hand blown painting together with a ladder motif, at a cave in Northern Spain dating from 64,000ya. 

With the arrival of modern humans in Europe around 45,000 years ago stone technologies; prismatic cores, blades, end scrapers, developed quickly and there was an explosion of art; carved bones and tusks,  clay figures, musical instruments and cave paintings. 

The day was packed with interest and enjoyed by us all. Thanks very much Matt for a brilliant day.

Jacqui 

The Fittleworth Fieldwalking team met up at 8.45am each morning on the sunny but chilly ploughed field to await our instructions and collect our finds bags for the days’ work. The Gazebos were already in place on the hillside as shelter for the flint and finds specialists. Our brief was to spot and pick up any artefact or item that does not naturally occur in this geological area.
The field sits within in the narrow band of the Lower Greensand group which, according to Geology of Britain (www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain), consists of mainly sands and sandstones with some silts and clays. To the north is the Wealden clay geological group and to the south is the chalk and flint South Downs. The view from the field with its outlook across the river Rother and Arun valley to the Downs is truly inspirational. It’s clear why this piece of land and its surroundings may have been used by the earlier roaming hunter gatherers of the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods through to the agricultural practices of the Neolithic period. The field would have provided a superb vantage point for watching for herds of animals passing below or gathering on the banks of the rivers. It was easy to imagine the Stone Age hunters knapping and preparing the flint they may have collected or mined and brought back from the chalk Downs and planning the days hunt.
We were organised into groups by Steve Cleverly from CDAS and sent out to walk in straight rows next to each other, examining the ground for artefacts, across a grid mapped out to cover all of the designated area.
The field walkers from both WAS and CDAS had become experts at spotting the flint tools because of the study days sorting and cataloguing the worked flint, found by Mr Smith on his land, under the watchful eyes of our flint specialists Bob and Gill Turner. We spotted some finely knapped Mesolithic curved blades, bladelets and microliths that were made from the best black flint and some cores with several flakes taken off. We found a good
scattering of flint tools from the Mesolithic and Neolithic across the field throughout the week as well as pottery sherds from later periods and even a
Victorian penny. Everything we had collected we put into our bags with a grid number to be properly identified and recorded by the finds team in the
Gazebo. It is now the job of Steve Cleverly and Bob Turner to sort out the results of the fieldwalk and work out a distribution map of all the different
artefacts that were found. Overall a really enjoyable experience.