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Bradgate Park, we're back investigating ~14,000 year old archaeology
our geophysics and excavation at Bradgate Park in 2025
our geophysics and excavation at Bradgate Park in 2025
This page takes you to a selection of videos that cover the geology of the site, geophysics, test pit in situ finds and comments by volunteer diggers.
You can excavate this test pit yourself via a 3D model.
Still photos of volunteers on the hunt for flint and other finds.
View from the north slope over Little Matlock Gorge, it narrows towards the west. The River Lin is visible and would serve to slow wild horse running at a maximum speed of ~50km/h on land to 4 km/h when swimming. Other than trees and some damning of the river, the view is unaltered over millennia.
Bradgate Lawns looking west towards the House from the rocky knoll where lay the Late Upper Palaeolithic camp site.
Introduction
Introduction
Based on Bayesian radiocarbon dating of human skeletal remains found in Gough's Cave, Somerset, the re-establishment of the British population following the Last Glacial Maximum began between 15,070 and 14,610 years cal. bp (Charlton et al 2022). Hunter gatherers at Bradgate Park likely arrived somewhat later. The new dating could suggest occupation before rapid climate warming that started around 14,700 years ago (the beginning of the Late Glacial Interstadial), an event recorded in Greenland ice cores.
At Bradgate, flint technology included the en éperon technique of core platform faceting (image below). In Britain, this is unique to the Creswellian culture. The Bradgate lithic collection suggest a hunting site. Projectile point manufacture indicates preparation for the chase. Broken piercers suggest the boring of hard materials like antler or bone. This activity might represent tasks unrelated to immediate hunting, possibly done to pass time while waiting for game in Little Matlock Gorge.
The Gorge would act as an ambush location for prey such as fast-moving groups of wild horses traveling along the Lin Valley. Alternatively, humans may have herded ungulates through the Gorge to trap them at its western end.
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