Barnham is situated in the Breckland region of East Anglia, 3.5km south of Thetford, and 1.5km southwest off Elveden. The site was originally a small brickpit operational around the turn of the twentieth century. It was excavated by T.T. Paterson in the 1930s (Paterson 1937), by John Wymer in the 1970s (Wymer 1985) and by the British Museum, between 1989–1994 and 2015 to 2025 (Ashton et al. 1998, 2005, 2016).

The geological sequence at Barnham consists of a deep glaciogenic channel filled with MIS 12 Anglian till and fluvio-glacial outwash. On top of this glaciogenic sequence lies a late MIS 12 to early MIS 11 lacustrine and fluvial sequence, comprising 7m of fossiliferous interglacial clays and silts, passing laterally at the channel margins into yellow-grey silty-sands overlying a coarse cobble band. The sequence is capped by a colluvial brickearth. A diverse temperate vertebrate fauna of early Hoxnian (MIS 11c) character was recovered from the silts within the channel (Ashton et al. 1998).

The archaeology at Barnham is associated with the coarse cobble band, the laterally occurring silty-clays and the overlying brickearth. Paterson (1937) described five non-handaxe (Clactonian) assemblages (A–E) from below, within and atop the cobble band, with an Acheulean assemblage (F) in the overlying brickearths, a sequence that has, with revised nomenclature, been confirmed by recent excavations (Ashton et al. 2016). The present sample consists of all known handaxes from Barnham, housed in the British Museum and West Stow Museums.

Ashton, N.M., Lewis, S.G. & Parfitt, S.A. (eds). 1998. Excavations at the Lower Palaeolithic site at East Farm, Barnham, Suffolk 1989–1994. London: British Museum Press.

Ashton, N., Lewis, S., Parfitt, S., Candy, I., Keen, D., Kemp, R., Penckman, K., Thomas, G., Whittaker, J. & White, M.J. 2005. Excavations at the Lower Palaeolithic site at Elveden, Suffolk, UK. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 1–61.

Ashton, N.M., Lewis, S.G., Parfitt, S.A., Davis, R.J. & Stringer C.B. 2016. Handaxe and non-handaxe assemblages during Marine Isotope Stage 11 in northern Europe: recent investigations at Barnham, Suffolk, UK. Journal of Quaternary Science 31: 837–843.

Paterson, T.T. 1937. Studies on the Palaeolithic succession in England No. 1: the Barnham sequence. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 3: 87–135.

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