Clactonian

The Clactonian is a Lower Paleolithic industrial facies described by Henri Breuil in 1932 from materials from the eponymous site of Clacton-on-Sea (Essex, England)..

Although it is a contemporary of the Acheulean and shares the same technological traits, it lacks bifaces. It is characterized, rather, by a flake extraction procedure that often receives the same name (Clactonian technique) and which consists of obtaining large pieces by striking with large firing pins, generally passive (firing pin sleeping).

The clactoniense.

The flakes obtained in this way are distinguished by their thick heel, almost always smooth or cortical, and with a very prominent contraconchoid. This facies seemed to extend throughout Atlantic Europe.

Samuel H. Warren, reviewing Breuil's ideas, qualifies that it is not really just an industry with flakes, but that it has various types of nuclear tools, fundamentally carved edges, made on angled blocks of flint. In addition, more than half of the flakes that he was able to study from the Clacton deposit had not been extracted following the process described by Breuil, a technique that, on the other hand, occurs in other Stone Age cultures.

At the Swanscombe site (also in England) Clactonian-type flakes have been found in very old sediments, dating to the Mindel glaciation or even to the previous interglacial (perhaps about 600,000 years ago). On the terraces of the Somme river (near Paris, France) industries of this type have been associated with faunal remains (Elephas antiquus and Elephas meridionalis), at the same levels as the Abbevillense (ie early Acheulean). When evolving, in the Mindel-Riss interglacial, the Clactonian diversified its tools, for which reason it began to speak of a different stage, the Evenosian; which, in turn, will give rise to the so-called Curson-type industries. The Evenosian, which also lacks bifaces, already possesses tools such as scrapers and truncations —virtually identical to those of the Upper Paleolithic—, as well as carved edges, polyhedrons, notches, and denticulates.

However, the Clactonian, more than a culture or a facies, could be a carving technique that is used interchangeably for the extraction of flakes or the retouching of the same with hard hammer. This retouching is usually aimed at obtaining a deep notch or cleft in the edge, by means of a single very penetrating and marked flake: Clactonian notch. Understanding it this way, the Clactonian exists within the Acheulean (perhaps as a variant, throughout its entire development) and even during later stages.