Purfleet, ARC THPE 94

As part of a larger programme of archaeological investigation along the route of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Union Railways Ltd commissioned the Oxford Archaeological Unit to undertake a field evaluation of 0.5ha of land immediately to the south of the Purfleet By-pass, Purfleet, Thurrock, Essex in July to September 1995. Purfleet is of national, if not international, importance for palaeolithic archaeology and pleistocene geology, as recognised from previous investigations of chalk and gravel pits in the locality. Quarrying has significantly depleted this resource. The deposits of interest represent the fill of an ancient river channel, aligned east to west, which is crossed obliquely by the CTRL route at a point where the railway runs in a cutting. In this evaluation, the sedimentary stratigraphy of the deposits has been recorded from a series of ten boreholes and four test pits. A considerable number of Palaeolithic flint artefacts were recovered, largely from a slope wash or solifluction deposit eroded from a chalk cliff forming the southern edge of a palaeochannel of the Thames. Lithic material was also recovered from fluvial sediments at the margin of the palaeochannel. In both cases the flint was in relatively good condition, indicating that it had undergone little post-depositional re-working. Pollen was recovered from fine-grained sediments, but molluscs and bones were all but absent from the deposits investigated. In addition, some evidence of later prehistoric occupation was recorded, although the nature of the evaluation precluded detailed interpretation of the features recorded.