Beeches Pit

[1] It is one of the richest sites in England for evidence of human activity during that period,[3] and the hand axes are the "earliest post-Anglian handaxe-making horizon in Britain".

Further geological research took place between 1991 and 2006; excavations were done by John Gowlett in the 1990s, focusing on two areas, named AF and AH, on the pit's northwestern side.

[3] The pit evidences a rich fauna including mollusks, wood mice, fallow deer, and other animals, who lived in a water-rich environment in a woodland, with human occupation taking place at a time when there were higher temperatures in the summer and more rainfall than today.

[2] At Beeches Pit, humans occupied an area on the north side of a river bank; there was a spring nearby, and flint was available.

While one researcher suggested this might evidence that the humans occupying the site could not kindle any fire independently, and thus had to keep it going constantly, others see that as evidence of the place being a kind of home base, where those who remained in the camp while others left kept large fires for "warmth, safety and entertainment", wood being plentiful.