An early Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Pakefield-Kessingland, Suffolk

The Pakefield/Kessingland sequence is part of the Cromer Forest-bed Formation (CF-bF), a varied sequence of freshwater and marine sediments underlain by the glaciogenic deposits (tills and outwash) generally regarded as representing phases of a single cold stage, the Anglian, believed to correspond with OIS 12 of the deep sea sequence. West (1980), mainly on the basis of pollen assemblages, correlated Pakefield/Kessingland with the Freshwater Bed at West Runton (WRFB, Norfolk): the type locality for the Cromerian Stage (early Middle Pleistocene) - ca. 700,000 years old. In a first study of the mammal fauna Stuart & Lister (2001) identified three key taxa: hippopotamus Hippopotamus sp.; straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus; and a giant deer Megaloceros dawkinsi which are absent from the rich West Runton assemblage and, more recently, Stuart et al. (2004) added to the faunal list Mimomys aff. pusillus again absent from the WRFB. These records, together with significant differences in the plant fossils, provide strong evidence that Pakefield/Kessingland represents a distinct previously unrecognised stage, warmer than WRFB. The presence of Mimomys savini as in the Cromerian type locality, rather than the more advanced Arvicola cantianus, which occurs at other English early Middle Pleistocene localities such as Boxgrove (Sussex) and Westbury-sub-Mendip (Somerset), points for an older age. Many spectacular fossils, in terms of completeness and preservation, have been collected at Pakefield/Kessingland, making it one of the richest early Middle Pleistocene fossil sites in the Forest Bed. Moreover, until recently, sites such as Boxgrove (ca. 500,000 years BP) had produced the earliest evidence (artefacts and skeletal remains) for human presence in Britain (Roberts et al., 1994; Roberts & Parfitt 1999), but the discovery in 2002 of unequivocal flint artefacts at Pakefield (Parfitt et al. in prep.) significantly pushes back the time of first human colonisation of NW Europe and contributes to the importance of this early Middle Pleistocene site