Such a special moment, a small Late Middle Palaeolithic Biface fresh from the ground & I'm the first person to hold it since discard by a Neanderthal person ~60,000 years ago Discovered during a @uclarchaeology.bsky.social development-led project in Hove, Sussex in 2021 #FlintFriday 🦣🏺 - ThreadSky

mattpope.bsky.social • 90 days ago

Such a special moment, a small Late Middle Palaeolithic Biface fresh from the ground & I'm the first person to hold it since discard by a Neanderthal person ~60,000 years ago
Discovered during a @uclarchaeology.bsky.social development-led project in Hove, Sussex in 2021
#FlintFriday
🦣🏺

Comments

enricharch.bsky.social•90 days ago

Definitely older than anything we've found!

mattpope.bsky.social•90 days ago

So far!

lemoustier.bsky.social•90 days ago

Oh lovely don't know if I saw this before, did you share it on twitter? Did it have sedimentary context for chron?
I'd love someone to properly research what the basket patination is really about. I want to think it's moss for some reason

mattpope.bsky.social•90 days ago

Yes I think its been shared before and yes we were able to broadly bracket by OSL, but wasn't in situ. The white lines/basket patination is so distinctive isnt it? I have so rarely seen it outside of the Devensian. Rooting in loess soils?

lemoustier.bsky.social•90 days ago

I keep trying to think what is distinctive about the ecology or hydrology that might cause it. Waterlogged or frozen steppe/bog contexts?
Also don't know if I've seen it abroad, although feel like maybe there was something in the La Cotte later Pleis material I looked at? Might be imagining that...

osteoconnor.bsky.social•90 days ago

Interesting. Do the white lines branch?

lemoustier.bsky.social•90 days ago

It is often called dendritic and is assumed to be roots but I don't know if anyone has systematically investigated it

mattpope.bsky.social•90 days ago

I'm writing this one atm, from Sussex. I find it hard not to think grassy roots aren't at the heart of it, esp as often on one side paging @beccyscottuk.bsky.social

lemoustier.bsky.social•90 days ago

Very nice
Yes the difference in faces is often striking.

beccyscottuk.bsky.social•90 days ago

It's so tempting to see it as something going on under poorly developed turf? Like the matty stuff you get in summer. But you get really deep soil formation into loessy sequences - maybe it's a specifically dry and arid thing

beccyscottuk.bsky.social•90 days ago

Centipede tracks

osteoconnor.bsky.social•90 days ago

It is, at first sight, reminiscent of the root markings we commonly see on bones, but that may be misleading!

pinars.bsky.social•90 days ago

Wow. Can’t imagine how that must have felt like!

mattpope.bsky.social•90 days ago

I was cold, it was a live site, I remember relief as I almost missed it. So while I wanted to catch the moment, I was largely thinking about how to proceed, how to preserve the context and what my next steps were going to be.

pinars.bsky.social•90 days ago

That comment makes it all the more real.

coromandelsunrise.bsky.social•89 days ago

What a beautiful thing it is too.

aqueductus.bsky.social•90 days ago

What's Neanderthal for 'Hove, actually'?

librarianem.bsky.social•90 days ago

what a beautiful shape 🍐

wanderinggaia.bsky.social•90 days ago

Wonderful!

stephendh.bsky.social•90 days ago

My favourite finding linked to "individual person-hood". The footprints of a small person alongside Langebaan lagoon dating back 117 000 years. Popularly called "Eve's Footprint" but honestly just as impressive even if he or she went by another name!

stephendh.bsky.social•90 days ago

The photo is from https://profleeberger.com/history-of-discovery-of-eves-footprints/
And if you want to spoil it with technical details the old original paper is at https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00382353_69

drewlor.bsky.social•89 days ago

That’s a whole lot of years

mattpope.bsky.social•89 days ago

Big slab of time

drewlor.bsky.social•89 days ago

Yeah it is

miramiraendeval.bsky.social•90 days ago

🤓

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