85 million years
ago, Cretaceous Period (144 - 66.4 million
years ago): Sussex is covered by a warm sea inhabited by ammonites, Micraster
urchins, molluscs, at a lower latitude (Continental Drift: Tectonic Plate
Theory). Sedimentary deposits of foraminiferans such as Globigerina
and
coccoliths (microscopic plankton with a calcium carbonate shell) lay down
the chalk which is rock of the South Downs near Shoreham.
Santonian Age (87.5
to 84 million years ago). The stage's name derives from the town of Saintes
in western France, the area surrounding which is the classic type district
for rocks of this age.
Chalk deposition
in eastern England from Cenomanian to Maastrichtian time.
60 million years
ago, Tertiary (66.4 million - 2.3 million years ago). Sussex is alternately
covered by sea and tropical deltas. (After the mass extinction of the dinosaurs
and life in the sea at the end of the Cretaceous period, the placental
mammals evolved to become the dominant animals on Planet Earth.)
14 million years
ago, Miocene Epoch, the British Isles become dry land and begin to look
as they do today. Mastodons (an elephant) and Rhinoceros roamed.
2 million years
ago: Pleistocene Epoch (2,300,000 - 9,000 years ago): Ice Age with northern
Britain covered by a large Ice Shield and southern England is connected
to the Continent. (Hominids Australopithecus evolved about 4.5 million
years ago and Homo erectus (not a precursor
to Homo sapiens) about 1.64 million years
ago in Africa.) Elephant, Zebra, Gazelle, Horse and Deer roamed in woods
of Alder, Oak, Pine, Spruce etc. Climatic variations during this Epoch.
(Revision from the Observer
3 October 1999, Homo erectus evolved in Africa 2 million years ago,
now revised after a discovery of
Homo
erectus at Dmanisi,Georgia, dated at 1.8 million years
old. No photographs of the skulls yet published.)
500 thousand
years ago. Habitation by Hominids (Primitive Man), Homo heidelbergensis
(is
this a variant of Homo erectus, at Boxgrove, West Sussex.
The skull was not found, but two teeth were discovered. Hominds hunted,
&/or scavenged, animals including the Rhinoceros Stephanorhinus
hundsheimensis, the Bear Ursus deningeri, Giant Deer Megaloceros
dawkinsi, and the Horse, Equus ferus, using flint bifaces (axes,
cutting edges were formed from the intersection of two curved and flaked
surfaces). Temperate climate.
(Britain at this time
was a peninsula of continental Europe, the English Channel was closed at
the eastern end.)
A
Middle Pleistocene hominid site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex
M
B Roberts & S A Parfitt
English
Heritage 1999 Archaeological Report 17
ISBN
1 85074 670 2
200 thousand
years ago. Swanscombe Man discovered in southern England, species Homo
heidelbergensis pre-dating the discovery of Neanderthal, Homo neanderthalensis,
(not discovered in England, but found in the Neander Valley, Germany, dated
100 thousand years ago, but disappeared from the fossil record 30 thousand
years ago. Could neanderthals talk?). Climate very warm, as warm as the
Nile Valley (Mindel-Riss interglacial).
(Homo
neanderthalensis
became extinct about 30 thousand years ago.)
(circa. 90 thousand
years ago. Homo sapiens fossils discovered in several locations
in Africa and Israel).
Ref to European hominids:
Boxgrove (Archaeological Report 17) page 417.
Homo heidelbergensis
(also
known as an archaic Homo sapiens) can reasonably be thought of as
the ancestor of both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis
(two
separate species that probably did not interbreed).
Homo sapiens first
arrived in Europe about 40,000 years ago.
100-70 thousand
years ago (Ipswichian interglacial). Evidence of stone tools used by hominids
from Hoxne near Diss in Suffolk.
25 thousand years
ago. England covered by grasslands, with Mammoth, Woolly Rhinocerous, Horse,
Bison, Reindeer, Brown Bear, Wolf and Arctic Fox.
20 thousand years
ago. An Ice Age covered the earth with the glaciers reaching mid-England.
Southern England would be very cold like the Arctic and unable to support
Man.
14 thousand years
ago. The Ice begins to melt. Birch and pines in southern England.
11 thousand years
ago. The European rivers deposited the acorns and the seeds of the broad-leafed
forest that began to replace the evergreens as the weather becme warmer.
8000 BC:
First evidence of Mesolithic Man in Sussex. These nomadic people
hunted and fished using primitive flint tools. Reindeer, Lynx, Boar, Beaver,
Horse, Wolf and Bear roamed in extensive woods of Elm, Alder, Ash, Oak,
Birch, Hazel, Lime etc.
6500 BC. The
glaciers melt, the sea rises and Britain becomes an island.
The chalk is weathered
and covered by grasses and wildwood, mostly Elm. The River Adur deposits
clay from the Weald, and flint is left on the beach after the friable chalk
has eroded away
The
exact dates of the arrival of the trees are general for southern England
and not specific To Sussex: they may need to be revised as later research
will undoubtedly uncover more accurate records.
About 4070 BC (Neolithic Age)
there is evidence that flint was mined at Church Hill near Worthing (5
miles west of Shoreham).
3200 BC First construction of Stonehenge.
2600 BC Avebury Stone Circles.
2000 BC Bluestones incorporated into
Stonehenge.
1900 BC Lunar? stone circles in Scotland,
Cairnpapple Hill, Lothian.
