Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project

The Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project (MVPP) was developed in response to the priorities and objectives of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. The project was focused within the Thames Gateway development area on sand/gravel aggregate deposits in southeast The Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project (MVPP) was developed in response to the priorities and objectives of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. The project was focused within the Thames Gateway development area on sand/gravel aggregate deposits in southeast Essex and north Kent associated with the palaeo-Medway River. This area has a long history of aggregate extraction, as well as still containing a substantial aggregate resource liable for future extraction or impact by other development. At its heart the MVPP is about aiding the curatorial community in managing the Lower/Middle Palaeolithic resource contained in the aggregate extraction landscape. The project is implemented in the Medway region, but many of its methods and outcomes are directly transferable to the wider aggregate resource. The MVPP built on previous work, in particular the Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project (SRPP) and The English Rivers Palaeolithic Survey (TERPS) in the 1990s, and on work carried out since 2000 under phase 1 of ALSF by the Shotton Project, the Thames Estuary Survey of Mineral Extraction Sites (TESMES). These projects have essentially been about collating known information on Palaeolithic find-spots, and relating them to existing British Geological Survey (BGS) mapping. The MVPP worked in three main directions: 1) fieldwork was carried out to validate and develop the essential chrono-stratigraphic framework; 2) a more detailed analysis of previous Palaeolithic finds from aggregate deposits in the study region, including recording of typology and condition and reviewing provenance information; 3) collation and analysis of findspot information with better understanding of the Pleistocene framework, achieved through a combination of improved lithostratigraphic synthesis and OSL dating, to, for the first time, generate a GIS Palaeolithic Resource Predictive Model that both characterises the Palaeolithic resource and predicts zones of interest and significance. In addition, work has been carried out that has enhanced the understanding of a number of key sites; in particular: (a) Cuxton in Kent, with important new finds reliably dated by OSL to c. 230,000 years before present (BP); and (b) Westcliff High School for Girls, in Southend, Essex, with identified lithic artefactual evidence of pre-Anglian hominin presence.