Chequer's Wood and Old Park

Chequer's Wood and Old Park is a 106.9-hectare (264-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the eastern outskirts of Canterbury in Kent.[1][2] It is a Geological Conservation Review site.[3]

Chequer's Wood and Old Park
Site of Special Scientific Interest
LocationKent
Grid referenceTR 173 586[1]
InterestBiological
Geological
Area106.9 hectares (264 acres)[1]
Notification1985[1]
Location mapMagic Map

This site includes Fordwich Pit, which has yielded a large collection of early Acheulian handaxes dated to 620,000 to 560,000 years old. Making them the oldest reliably dated handaxes in Britain, and the site one of the oldest archaeological sites in northern Europe.[4] The site is also notable for the discovery of other stone tool types, including scrapers, awls, flakes and cores. The tools were potentially made by Homo heidelbergensis, and the site represents the only securely dated evidence of hominins in Britain during this period (marine isotope stage 15). [5]

Habitats include alder wood in a valley bottom, acidic grassland on dry sandy soil, oak and birch woodland, scrub and a pond.[6][7]

Access

The site is owned by Canterbury City Council and the Ministry of Defence, and includes a pond (Reed Pond) which is managed by a local environmental organisation. There is a footpath and cycle path through it. The majority of the site, formerly used by the military for training, has no public access.

References
  1. "Designated Sites View: Chequer's Wood and Old Park". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  2. "Map of Chequer's Wood and Old Park". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  3. "Fordwich Pit (Quaternary of South-East England)". Geological Conservation Review. Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  4. Key, Alastair; Lauer, Tobias; Skinner, Matthew M.; Pope, Matthew; Bridgland, David R.; Noble, Laurie; Proffitt, Tomos (2022). "On the earliest Acheulean in Britain: First dates and in-situ artefacts from the MIS 15 site of Fordwich (Kent, UK)". Royal Society Open Science. 9 (6): 211904. Bibcode:2022RSOS....911904K. doi:10.1098/rsos.211904. PMC 9214292. PMID 35754990. S2CID 249891478.
  5. Key, Alastair; Lauer, Tobias; Skinner, Matthew M.; Pope, Matthew; Bridgland, David R.; Noble, Laurie; Proffitt, Tomos (2022). "On the earliest Acheulean in Britain: First dates and in-situ artefacts from the MIS 15 site of Fordwich (Kent, UK)". Royal Society Open Science. 9 (6): 211904. Bibcode:2022RSOS....911904K. doi:10.1098/rsos.211904. PMC 9214292. PMID 35754990. S2CID 249891478.
  6. "Chequer's Wood and Old Park citation" (PDF). Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  7. Pettitt, Paul; White, Mark (2012). The British Palaeolithic: Human Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-415-67455-3.
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51.285°N 1.115°E / 51.285; 1.115

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