Palaeolithic lithic implements, Original Dock area, Tilbury (EHER 1710)

Palaeolithic lithic implements found near Tilbury docks. A Palaeolithic implement was found at Tilbury Dock in 1913. A Palaeolithic handaxe was found in 1968 at the Dockyard extension at Tilbury. Possible Palaeolithic worked flints have also been found.

Original HER entry merged with four NRHE data imports. Palaeolithic finds included two hand-axes and one unretouched flake. <1> <2> <2> <3> <4> <8> A Palaeolithic implement found at Tilbury Dock in 1913 is now in the British Museum. <5> There are also worked flints, possibly palaeolithic. Palaeolithic implement found at Tilbury Dock in 1913, now in the British Museum, possibly from the same site. <6> <7> Two hand-axes are in the Sturge Collection at British Museum. By typology, situation and condition are of last glacial age. One is flat-butted and cordate in type, "generally associated with Mousterian industries". It was dredged from the Thames, is slightly rolled and stained so presumably was swept from a buried surface when the sea level was low and incorporated in buried channel deposits of the river. Is figured in <10>, though the scale is wrong. The NRHE states that the two handaxes were found either from dredging the River Thames or at the docks, in an area of Alluvium or Buried Channel Gravel geology and that one flake was also found. <4> <9> <10> <13> Other find is black, unrolled, "may actually have come off a buried land surface". <11> says that "black, unrolled Mousterian hand-axes" were dredged from the Thames near Tilbury but, apart from the example in the British Museum, no others could be traced, though <12> lists an ovate found in 1968 in Tilbury Dock extensions (estimated at TQ 637787). <9>-<12> The ovate above is likely the Palaeolithic handaxe found in 1968 at the Dockyard extension at Tilbury, in an area of Alluvium geology. <9> <12> <13> 1st axe is cited wrongly in this source. <14> Site Assessment = Accession number? Additional reference <15>