During a field evaluation in advance of housing development at Ebbsfleet green in 2014 an important assemblage of Upper Palaeolithic Long-Blade flints was uncovered. Further detailed excavation of the area produced a total of 354 flint artefacts including a huge blade more than 15cm long, and several other mint condition artefacts including another large Blade. The area has been interpreted as workshop where locally-obtained flint nodules were knapped, with desirable blade-products then being collected and taken away.

In detail: In the course of initial mechanical excavation, several large and mint condition flint artefacts were recovered in a cluster from towards the southern end of one trench. This trench was oriented north-south, and was located in the northern part of the site, in a natural amphitheatre formed by a dry valley opening to the south. The artefacts were found at a depth of c 1m below the ground surface, about 25cm below the top of a fine brickearth deposit that was already recognised as filling the lower-lying parts of the site, and that had previously been interpreted as Holocene colluvium. It was immediately clear that the flints were likely to be Upper Palaeolithic, and specifically that they probably represented the late Upper Palaeolithic Long-Blade industry. The initial collection included a huge blade more than 15cm long, and several other mint condition artefacts including another large blade. Two large double-platform blade cores were also found on the spoil-heap from freshly-excavated sediments from the same depth and location as these blades. All of the lithic material was in mint condition. It was therefore thought necessary to evaluate this scatter and its surrounding horizon more carefully. The subsequent hand excavation produced seven different assemblages in the artefact collection. It appears that most material is essentially exactly where it was left late in the Upper Palaeolithic. For instance, that many of the cores seem to have been deliberately placed face-down, perhaps a symbolic full-stop to the knapping process. The material from the main horizon is clearly late Upper Palaeolithic in date, representing occupation after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum at c 18,000 BP. The material found to date in the newly-discovered late Upper Palaeolithic assemblage from Ebbsfleet Green is therefore most reminiscent of the Terminal Upper Palaeolithic Long-blade industry Long-blade industries in Britain are rare discoveries associated with occupation at the very end of the Last (Devensian) glaciation, at the transition from the last cold episode to the warmer climate of the Holocene. Long-blade occurrences are dated to c 10,000 BP which equates with c. 10,000 BC or 12,000 calendar years before the actual present day. For the main Long-blade horizon the general impression formed from the lithic assemblage was of a knapping workshop, at a location near to the raw material source. There were numerous instances of debitage from early in the reduction process, such as 100% cortical flakes from platform preparation at the top of cylindrical nodules, and crested blades from the start of blade production sequences. There were several instances of debitage from core maintenance during the blade production process, such as core rejuvenation flakes and flancs de nucléus, and there were numerous abandoned cores. However, the overall proportion of debitage in relation to the number of cores, and the number of blades in relation to the number of cores, were both disproportionately low for a complete assemblage. This suggests that selected blades were collected and taken away from the site, for modification and use elsewhere. There was very little evidence for secondary working of debitage into flake-tools at the site. (summarised from source) (1-2)

<1> CgMs Consulting, 2014, An interim report on an archaeological evaluation (phase 4), strip, map and sample and palaeolithic mitigation: Ebbsfleet Green (formerly Northfleet West Sub-station), November 2014 (Unpublished document). SKE30736.

<2> CgMs Consulting, 2015, A report on an archaeological evaluation (phase 4), strip, map and sample and palaeolithic mitigation: Ebbsfleet Green (formerly Northfleet West Sub-station), March 2015 (Unpublished document). SKE30737.