Warren Hill is located 3km from Mildenhall and 1km south of High Lodge, on the lowest terrace of the Bytham River (the Warren Hill Terrace) (Davis et al. 2021). The deposits here consist of a series of finely laminated sands and silts overlain by quartz and quartzite rich gravels; these are sometimes open framework and display steeply-dipping foreset characteristic of deltaic sediments. In places the sequence overlies Lowestoft till, suggesting it was deposited during the Anglian and represents the final iteration of the Bytham River in the region. The Warren Hill succession has been interpreted as glaciolacustrine sediments that were deposited within a proglacial lake, formed by the river being blocked downstream by early Anglian ice. These are overlain by sands and gravels deposited in a prograding delta system where the river met the lake. ESR age estimates from Warren Hill suggested an MIS15–14 age for the formation of the gravel (Lewis et al. 2021), but the geological evidence strongly indicates that these dates are too old, and an Anglian age is preferred (Lewis et al. 2021, Davis et al. 2021). This is supported by the occurrence of armoured mudballs in the sediments at Warren Hill that seem to have been redeposited from the High Lodge clays, making the deposits at Warren Hill younger than those of High Lodge.

Warren Hill is a very rich Acheulean site, with several thousand handaxes having being recovered, mostly from gravel extraction works in the later nineteenth century (Evans 1897; Wymer 1985). The assemblage is comprised of two components, interpreted as an elongate rolled group thought to have been successively redeposited by the Bytham from earlier (MIS 15) occupation, and a fresher group with ovates showing with tranchet tips, suggested to be derived from MIS13 land surfaces such as High Lodge (Davis et al. 2021).

The sample of handaxes in fresh condition recorded in this database is attributed to MIS 13 and is based on that used by Ashton and Davis (2021). It comprises 69 handaxes currently held in the British Museum, which were selected for based on condition.

Evans, S. J. 1897. Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain. 2nd Edition. London: Longmans & Co.

Davis, R., Ashton, N., Hatch, M., Hoare, P.G. and Lewis, S.G., 2021. Palaeolithic archaeology of the Bytham River: human occupation of Britain during the early Middle Pleistocene and its European context. Journal of Quaternary Science 36: 526–546.

Lewis, S.G., Ashton, N., Davis, R., Hatch, M., Hoare, P.G., Voinchet, P. and Bahain, J.J., 2021. A revised terrace stratigraphy and chronology for the early Middle Pleistocene Bytham River in the Breckland of East Anglia, UK. Quaternary Science Reviews 269: 107113.

Wymer, J. J. 1985. Palaeolithic Sites of East Anglia. Norwich: Geobooks.