Shippea Hill SSSI
Site of Special Scientific Interest
LocationCambridgeshire
Grid referenceTL 637 850[1]
InterestGeological
Area27.6 hectares[1]
Notification1989[1]
Location mapMagic Map

Shippea Hill SSSI is a 27.6-hectare (68-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England.[1][2] It is a Geological Conservation Review site.[3]

The succession of sedimentary layers in the Fens in the Holocene epoch, the period since the last ice age, was determined in the 1930s on the basis of Shippea Hill deposits, although this has been amended as the site has been found to be atypical. It is particularly important for dating the "Fen Clay transgression" of the sea into the Fens in the Holocene.[4][5]

In the early 1930s the pioneer of British Mesolithic archaeology, Grahame Clark collaborated with the botanists Harry and Margaret Godwin to gain a deeper understanding of the environment of past societies by integrating archaeological findings with new scientific techniques in geology and plant sciences. They formed the Fenland Research Committee to study the effect of post-glacial environmental changes on Fenland Mesolithic communities, and their first major collaboration was excavation of Shippea Hill.[6]

The site is on private land with no public access. It has been filled in and is now a field.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Designated Sites View: Shippea Hill SSSI". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "Map of Shippea Hill SSSI". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  3. ↑ "Shippea Hill (Quaternary of East Anglia)". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  4. ↑ "Shippea Hill citation" (PDF). Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  5. ↑ French, Charles (2005). "The Flandrian Sequence". Geoarchaeology in Action: Studies in Soil Micromorphology and Landscape Evolution. Routledge. ISBN 9781134482337.
  6. ↑ Gaffney, Vincent; Fitch, Simon; Smith, David (2009). Europe's Lost World: The Rediscovery of Doggerland. Council for British Archaeology. p. 21.
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52°26′17″N 0°24′25″E / 52.438°N 0.407°E / 52.438; 0.407

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