The site at Broom has produced the largest Lower Palaeolithic assemblages in the south-west and one of the largest in Britain as a whole, numbering some 1800 handaxes (Wymer 1999; Hosfield & Green 2013). These were recovered from Middle Pleistocene terrace deposits of the River Axe, at the junction of the Axe and its east-bank tributary, the Blackwater. Discoveries at Broom were first made in the early 1870s (Evans 1872) and intensified during the 1930s through the work of C.E. Bean. Most of the finds were recovered from three commercial gravel pits during this period—Railway Ballast Pit, Pratt’s New Pit, and Pratt’s Old Pit. Additional artefacts were recovered during fieldwork by Green, Shakesby, and Stephens in the early 1980s (Shakesby & Stephens 1984). The site was comprehensively reassessed and published as a monograph by Hosfield & Green (2013).

The Pleistocene deposits at Broom consist of ~12m (40ft) of bedded sands and gravels, accumulated during at least three phases of deposition (Hosfield & Green 2013). The basal Holditch Lane Gravel formed under cool conditions and appears archaeologically sterile. Above this lies the Wadbrook Member (bedded sands, silts, and occasional gravel) interpreted as floodplain and channel deposits of the Rivers Axe and Blackwater. Pollen evidence indicates a post-temperate climate, and most handaxes derive from this unit. Overlying these is the Fortfield Farm Gravel, deposited under cold conditions and yielding relatively few artefacts. Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating assigns the Fortfield Farm Gravel to MIS 8 and the Wadbrook Member to MIS 9 (Toms 2013), with palynological evidence suggesting the bulk of the archaeology belongs to a late, mild phase of MIS 9 (Hosfield and Green 2013).

Broom was included in Roe’s (1968a) morphometric study, where it was assigned to the undetermined Group IV. A larger assemblage was later analysed by Hosfield and colleagues (Hosfield & Green 2013). Their analysis revealed an assemblage dominated by cordate-ovate forms, alongside points, cleavers, and ficrons, with almost no crude types. Notably, approximately one-quarter of the handaxes exhibit pronounced and deliberately imposed asymmetry (Hosfield & Chamber 2009). The present sample consists of all complete handaxes from Broom housed in the British Museum.

Hosfield, R. & Chambers, J. 2009. Genuine diversity? The Broom biface assemblage. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75: 65–100.

Hosfield, R. & Green, C.P. 2013. Quaternary history and palaeolithic archaeology in the Axe Valley at Broom, South West England. Oxford: Oxbow Books

Wymer, J. 1999. The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain. Salisbury: Trust for Wessex Archaeology.