Late glacial geography of the Channel river network. Southeastern England and its central position in the British peninsula and ties with Northwestern Europe

The subject of this thesis is the Channel River and the initial recolonization of the British peninsula during the Late Glacial, 15 to 12,900 years ago. This period marks the opening of this barren landscape to the first establishment of fauna, vegetation and humans following the Last Glacial Maximum. The Late Glacial is a period punctuated by multiple abrupt climatic fluctuations and environmental transitions. The little-known submerged Channel River, which was the most extensive landscape feature in this region, is here considered as a major pivotal point for human dynamics in southeastern England. Shifting from cave assemblages located hundreds of kilometres to the west and north of the study region, and focussing on nearly a century of Late Glacial archaeological research, a renewed emphasis is placed on open air-sites in Southeast England building on research commencing in the 1980’s, and along the northern tributaries to the Channel River. The thesis combines three themes for the first time in this region: the lithic (stone tool) assemblages, the fluvial record, and prehistoric mobility. An innovative re-assessment of the lithic assemblages at local, national and Northern European scale is developed as a comparative framework for southern Britain. A compilation of multiple fluvial datasets characterising the Channel River and the regimes of its tributaries is applied to the archaeology record for the first time. By combining these two fields, new mobility and occupation models for the settlement of Southeast England are proposed. A strong connexion with the Channel River and its exceptional resources is highlighted. Cross-Channel links are examined, as is the Channel Estuary, actively flooding this resource rich region with rising sea levels, and rarely integrated in the discussion of Late Glacial archaeology for the region. This holistic approach to the Late Glacial landscape provides a refreshed framework to assess the lithic assemblages as spatial markers of human activity within a dynamic, evolving landscape. Structured on rare high-resolution sites, multiple scales and resolutions are applied for a broader landscape discussion. This distinguishes the relevance of induvial finds, scatters, and museum archives too often relegated to the back of the archaeological discussion. The outcome is identifying patterns and strategic locations, and developing a framework for future heritage awareness and model building.