Monument record IKL 043 - Devereux's Pit, Icklingham Brick Pit, Icklingham, (Palaeolithic)

Devereux's Pit, otherwise known as Icklingham Brick Pit. Now much overgrown. "Skertchly describes a `dirty loess-like loam' worked to a depth of 4.5m, containing some feshwater shells and also seeds of plants. He picked up a flake in disturbed soil, which seems to have come from the loam. McKenny Hughes was probably referring to this pit when he describes a deep pit in the brick earth with shells, `bones and antlers'. The only artefact definitely known from this pit is a crude stone struck hand-axe made on an older, patinated primary flake". Straight edged ovate hand- axe, 13 cm long, in the British Museum "is marked `Icklingham brick-earth' and may be from this site. It has a worn, white patina characteristic of exposure rather than abrasion" (S1).

2017: In 2017, an investigation was sought to demonstrate the presence and character of Lower Palaeolithic archaeology in the fine-grained Pleistocene sediments preserved at Devereux’s Pit. Work focused on two of the previously excavated sections. Section 2 was reopened and expanded, revealing a brickearth sequence overlying a non-calcareous grey silt. Excavation of a 2m x 1m test pit through the grey silt produced a small number of flakes and chips. A small number of flakes were also recovered from the overlying brickearths. The base of Section 1 was also reopened and expanded, revealing a similar grey silt to Section 2. Three 1m x 1m test pits through the grey silt produced an assemblage of 116 artefacts comprising cores, flakes, including ‘handaxe thinning flakes’, and chips, indicative of Lower Palaeolithic Acheulean technology. A small number of flakes and several pieces of natural flint displayed signs of burning. Samples were taken for clast lithological analysis, sediment analyses and ESR dating on quartz. (S2)

2018: Borehole Survey, (S4)
In Test Pit 1, where an assemblage with clear Lower Palaeolithic affinities was recovered from in situ sediments. That the sediments are fine-grained is really important, as it suggests the archaeology has nnot undergone significant reworking; the artefacts are at least approximately in the position in which they were discarded by hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic and therefore have the potential of telling us much about early human behaviour.

At present, the age of the site remains uncertain. The position of Devereux’s Pit in an area mapped by the BGS as Lowestoft Till suggests the sediments infill a basin formed in the surface of the till. It is possible that the chalky diamicton at the base of two of the boreholes is till, which would provide support for this interpretation. Lowestoft Till is widely accepted as being deposited during the Anglian Glaciation approximately 450 ka (thousand years ago). The archaeology at Devereux’s Pit would therefore be younger than 450 ka. This suggests that human occupation was during either Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (c. 400ka) or MIS 9 (c. 320 ka). Samples were taken from sections 1 and 2 for ESR dating on quartz. These are currently being processed by colleagues at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and will hopefully help resolve the age of the site. Other methods that may help to refine the age of the site in the future will be amino acid racemization on mollusc shells, thermoluminescence dating of burnt flint, pollen analysis and biostratigraphy, should suitable materials be preserved.

The artefacts are in a fresh condition, suggesting minimal reworking and therefore the likelihood that the artefacts are in primary context. This raises the prospect of identifying activity areas, particularly locations that knapping took place. Third, the artefacts indicate the presence of two different modes of reduction in the same archaeological horizon. On the one hand, the large core demonstrates that humans were knapping large flint nodules to produce large flakes. The core is a migrating platform core produced by alternate flaking, where the removal of a flake produces a new striking platform from which subsequent flakes can be removed. On the other hand, there are flakes characteristic of handaxe manufacture. These have linear platforms with lips and facets from bifacial knapping that are characteristic of use of soft hammers, probably antler or bone, that were used to thin handaxes. These two reduction sequences are characteristic of Lower Palaeolithic technology in Britain. Finally, the artefacts show a low level of cortex retention. While the assemblage is too small to draw firm conclusions, it does suggest that final stages of knapping were undertaken at the site.

The discovery of burnt materials, including burnt artefacts, in association with the main archaeological assemblage is of considerable importance. Devereux’s Pit has the potential of adding more information to this important debate. An aim of future work will be to determine if the burning event represented at Devereux’s Pit relates to human fire-use or natural fire.

Close to other pits with Palaeolithic finds - (SeeIKL 012 & 025).

2021: Excavation resumed

Devereux’s Pit is a Lower Palaeolithic site located in a disused clay pit 2.5km SE of Icklingham, and just 500m W of the internationally significant Lower Palaeolithic site at Beeches Pit, West Stow. Ongoing field investigations at the site since 2021 have identified a sequence of glacial and interglacial sediments that date to between 450,000 and 400,000 years ago (450-400 ka). The glacial sediments consist of till and gravels deposited during the Anglian glaciation (Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12; c.450 ka). The interglacial sediments infill a basin formed in the surface of the glacial deposits and are therefore likely to date to MIS 11 (c.400ka), the period of warm climatic conditions that succeeded the Anglian. The lower part of the interglacial sequence consists of sands and silts, which reflect a fluctuating depositional environment, from still or sluggish water to a more energetic stream. These are overlain by clays that indicate a final phase of sedimentation in a still water environment. The sequence is capped by sand and clay ‘brickearth’, formed by a combination of slope processes and wind-blown deposition, probably under cold climatic conditions. In places the interglacial sediments are calcareous and preserve faunal remains. A preliminary assessment of the record based on samples from boreholes has identified a variety of species of aquatic molluscs, fish, amphibians, small mammals and large mammals. Identifiable species include pike, tench, water vole, wood mouse and red or fallow deer. Together, these indicate a temperate climate with deposition in a water body surrounded by a mix of open grassland and denser vegetation. The presence of the mollusc Bithynia tentaculata has enabled the use of the dating technique amino acid racemisation (AAR), which provided confirmation that the interglacial sediments were deposited during MIS 11. The main excavation area (Area I) is located at the edge of the pit and near the margin of the Pleistocene water body. The basic stratigraphy here is the same as seen in boreholes located nearer to the centre of the basin, but with additional inputs from slope processes, with stonier deposits representing downslope movement of bankside sediments. Evidence for human occupation is provided by stone tool assemblages that occur throughout the interglacial sequence in Area I. These were likely discarded in activity areas along the edge of the water body and subsequently reworked into the Area I sediments via slope processes, probably over just a few metres. The artefacts are all related to the knapping of local flint cobbles and are typically in fresh condition. All the assemblages include products from core and flake technology, where hard stone hammers were used to knap flint cores to produce large flakes, some of which had the edges modified by retouch to produce notches, denticulates and scrapers. This is the only technology present in the lower part of the sequence, but the assemblages from the upper deposits also include products from the manufacture of handaxes. In these assemblages, approximately 30 per cent of the flakes have been produced using bone or antler hammers. Soft hammer flakes are completely absent from the lower part of the sequence. Devereux’s Pit is the third locality in Britain after the nearby site of Barnham (see above) and Swanscombe where MIS 11 sediments contain these two distinct industries, separated stratigraphically. They are the clearest examples of a wider pattern of human occupation of Britain during the early part of MIS 11c (Hoxnian interglacial) characterised by a core and flake industry, followed later but during the same interglacial by a separate industry characterised by handaxe manufacture. At Devereux’s Pit, the changeover appears to be relatively rapid, supporting the notion that these industries represent two distinct human groups with differing traditions of stone tool manufacture, rather than a gradual development of handaxe technology from the earlier core and flake industry (S5).