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Visit Our Centre

EFC Centre at Wat Tyler Country ParkOur centre is available for visits on a pre-booked basis on Wednesdays between 10am - 4pm. The Club’s activities and displays are also usually open to the public on the first Saturday of the month 11am - 4pm.

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About the Essex Field Club
Essex Field Club
registered charity
no 1113963
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Purfleet-on-Thames

previous pagePurfleet-on-Thames 320,000 years ago. View Eastwards. Two hunters standing where North Road path is now, looking over the Mar Dyke valley. At the time, the Thames was flowing westwards due to a loop in its course. The earliest people to live here were hunter-gatherers. There were no human remains at Purfleet,but Stone Age flint tools have been found and these help us to build up a picture of how they lived. At Purfleet, the first people to arrive came from the near continent (northern France, Germany, eastern Europe) at a time when Britain was joined to Europe. They were a type of human classified as Homo heidelbergensis. They would have used wooden tools but they also made simple tools by striking flakes off large flint nodules. These are very sharp when fresh and could be used in hunting, skinning and butchering animals. These simple flakes are described as belonging to the Clactonian Industry, named after the town in Essex. Homo heidelbergensis. Homo neanderthalensis. Mar Dyke. River Thames. Clactonian core Acheulian handaxe. Levallois core. Later arrivals, still H. heidelbergensis, came from southern Europe (Spain, France, Italy). They made more sophisticated flint tools, by striking off flakes to create a handaxe from the core of the nodule. This technique is known as the Acheulian Industry, from a site in France. The last arrivals were the Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, who were more sophisticated. They made tools by striking a flake off a flint to create a flat surface. This enabled them to have more control over the shape and size of the subsequent flakes. This was known as the Levallois Industry, again named from a site in France.next page