Boxgrove
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boxgrove is a village and civil parish in the Chichester of the English county of West Sussex.
[edit] Location
Boxgrove is located at grid reference SU906074, about five miles east of the city of Chichester. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 901.
[edit] Archaeology
Boxgrove is best known for the Lower Palaeolithic archaeological site discovered in a gravel quarry near the village. Parts of the site complex were excavated between 1983 and 1996 by a team led by Mark Roberts of University College London. Numerous Acheulean flint tools and remains of animals (some butchered) dating to around 500,000 years ago were found at the site. The area was therefore used by some of the earliest occupants of the British Isles. Remains of Homo heidelbergensis were found on the site in 1994, the only postcranial hominid bone to have been found in Northern Europe. Teeth from another individual were found two years later.
[edit] Boxgrove Priory
A Benedictine monastery was founded at Boxgrove by William de la Haye in 1115. The priory church remains as the Church of England parish church, minus the nave, and mostly dates from the 13th century.
