ULAS
University of Leicester Archaeological Services

Glaston Early Upper Palaeolithic Project: Site Formation

The site lies on a ridge flanked by tributaries of the rivers Chater and Welland, a location that probably dictated the original occupation and the subsequent survival of deposits. At the ridge summit were a series of sandstone rafts, the basal Collyweston facies of the Lincolnshire Limestone series, overlying Lower Estuarine sands. The location was a focus for two Pleistocene hunters, humans and hyaena. The hyaena took advantage of the site geology digging burrows in the soft sands beneath the stone rafts.

The remains appeared to have been preserved due to a ‘Sackung process’ whereby deposits on the ridge crest subsided into a fault basin caused by cambering of the valley sides (Collcutt 2001). The bone survived due to the calcareous ground chemistry caused by the leaching of solution from the limestone rafts.

Glaston has been important in that it has highlighted the great potential for survival of Palaeolithic deposits on ridge tops and local geologist Clive Jones has suggested that graben structures are likely to extend along the entire length of ridge crests in Rutland. Simon Collcutt’s assertion that the survival of the Glaston site might not be entirely capricious means that we might anticipate Palaeolithic deposits being located elsewhere along the Stone Belt of the East Leicestershire Uplands and Rutland.

Landscape analysis

Early reports of the site described the ridge top location as an ideal position for humans and hyena to survey the movement of animals across the Chater and Welland valleys. This proposition was tested with a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) generated terrain model and a Geographical Information System (GIS). The results were of some surprise. The viewshed from the Glaston site showed that most of the river valleys were actually obscured! However, there were long, wide views along the Glaston plateau and the adjacent interfluves beyond the valleys.