On Tuesday 3rd April, the Algarve Archaeological Association (AAA) will be presenting two lectures, in English, by Dr Matt Pope. The first lecture will be at 2.30pm at the Museu do Traje in Sao Bras, the second lecture will be at 6pm at the Convento de Sao Jose in Lagoa.
Dr Matt Pope will be presenting the results of his archaeological work on the Channel Island of Jersey where, since 2009, he and his team have been exploring the potential of the landscape of the island through archive research and a detailed study of it.
The work has focused in particular on La Cotte de St Brelade, a large Neanderthal occupation site with a sequence spanning 200,000 years of Neanderthal occupation. The results of this work and survey of the sea bed around the island suggest that parts of the English Channel have excellent preservation of the submerged landscape of the Ice Age, rivalling that of Doggerland. The English Channel is a largely unexplored submerged landscape which lies between the southern coast of England and Northern France. Like the more famous Doggerland, it is a landscape which was dry land to some degree over much of the last million years. Transforming through a dramatic flood water breach 480,000 years ago from an embayment in the Atlantic to a large river system including the Rhine, Thames and Seine, it would have provided a varied landscape of ridges, hills and deep valleys useful to early human hunters.
This landscape, which we call La Manche, offers a chance to examine in fine detail the degree to which the La Manche river represented a frontier, barrier or corridor to Neanderthal movement into northern Europe. Along with the record for Neanderthals from Wales, Britanny, West France, Spain and Portugal, Matt Pope considers how Neanderthals responded to being close to or separated from the Atlantic Ocean. This lecture is of particular interest since the recent discovery of a cave on the banks of a tributary of the Arade River near Portimao which contained evidence for occupation by Neanderthal Man 40,000 years ago in the Middle Palaeolithic period.
Dr Matt Pope is a well acknowledged expert and is Principal Research Associate in Palaeolithic Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL (University College London) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He has led field research in Southern Britain and the Channel Islands during the past 15 years. His research focuses on how early humans used and responded to their landscape in terms of tool use and hunting strategies and how these populations responded and adapted to climate change in Northern Europe over the past million years.
Matt Pope is an engaging speaker who is passionate about communicating the results of human origins research and explaining why understanding human adaptation is important to society. He has appeared regularly on TV, including the BBC documentary series 'Digging for Britain' with Dr Alice Roberts, and has also been involved in the investigations about the Piltdown Man fraud.
Lunch in Sao Bras can be arranged in advance – please call Maxine on 917 267 948. Non-members are welcome to attend the lectures for a 6 euro admission, with all money raised by the AAA being spent on archaeological grants and speakers.
For more information contact algarvearchass@gmail.com, visit arquealgarve.weebly.com or Facebook 'Algarve Archaeological Association'.
Please check the website or facebook page for any last minute changes.
