Jersey 2010
"Jersey Archaeology La Cotte de St Brelade"
Issue Date |
12.10.2010 |
ID |
Michel: 1521-1525;
Scott: 1476-1480:;
Stanley Gibbons: 1545-1549:
Yvert et Tellier: 1606-1610;
Category : pR |
Design |
Illustrator: Nick Shewring
Consultant: Dr. Paul Pettitt
and the curators of the Jersey Museum and La Hougue Bie.
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Stamps in set |
5 |
Value |
39p - Human Teeth
45p - Woolly Rhinoceros Skull
55p - Woolly Mammoth Tusks & Tooth
60p - Flint Tools
80p - Giant Deer Antler
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Size (width x height) |
40mm x 30mm |
Emission/Type |
commemorative |
Issue place |
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Layout |
sheets of ten (2 across x 5 down) |
Products |
FDC x1, PP x1 |
Paper |
four colour process offset lithography |
Perforation |
14x14 |
Print Technique |
Process: 4 Colour Offset Lithography
Colours:Full colour |
Printed by |
Stamps, First Day Cover envelope and
Presentation Pack painted by Nick Shewring. Stamps printed by
Osterreichische Staatsdruckerei GmbH |
Quantity |
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Issuing Authority |
Jersey Post Ltd |
On 12
th October, 2010, Jersey Post introduced a new series
entitled "Jersey Archaeology".
With so much emphasis on the Island's natural beauty, it is easy to bypass the
fact that it is home to one of Europe's most important archaeological sites, known as
La Cotte de St Brelade.
Serious excavations first began 100 years ago, in 1910 and Prince Charles, himself a
student of archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University, joined in a dig at
La Cotte in 1968.
The artefacts which are depicted on the stamps are some of those discovered during
the various excavations and are on display at the Jersey Museum and La Hougue Bie.
They include Human Teeth, a Woolly Rhinoceros Skull, Woolly Mammoth tusks and a tooth,
Flint Tools, and a Giant Deer Antler.
Below are quotes from the text attached to
the Presentation Pack.
Dr. Paul Pettitt, senior lecturer in Palaeolithic Archaeology at Sheffield University
and consultant to the BBC and independent television productions, has kindly penned
the following narrative to accompany the first issue in this series:
The collapsed site of La Cotte is world famous for the archaeology and palaeontology
that it contained and which has been excavated in several periods from the nineteenth
to the twentieth centuries.
During the Ice Age, when water was locked up at the poles as ice and sea levels were
correspondingly low.
Jersey became connected to the west of
France.
At the beginnings and ends of these cold periods, archaic humans - the Neanderthals -
operated on what is now an island.
At the time, La Cotte would have formed a highly-visible outcrop overlooking a
coastal plain rich in the resources critical for the survival of Neanderthal hunters,
such as reindeer: bison, extinct wild cattle. woolly rhinos and mammoths.
It is for these latter two animals that La Cotte is justly famous.
Around a quarter of a million years ago, during a relatively mild phase of a cold
glacial period, several mammoths and woolly rhinos had fallen to their deaths from the
plateau above and archaeologists are unsure whether Neanderthals deliberately drove
the beasts over the edge of the plateau, or whether the animals fell accidentally.
The latter seems to have happened frequently in the Ice Age with snow covering obscure
fatal drops.
Neanderthals would have read their landscapes for scavenging opportunities and the
fissure at La Cotte itself certainly provided a bonanza of meat.
Personal risk needed to be minimised and perhaps La Cotte was a place to go when the
snows were thick on the ground where dying animals could be finished off, providing
crucially important nutrients and fats to ensure the survival of small groups of
Neanderthals throughout the winter.
Indeed, the abundance of archaeology (termed Middle Palaeolithic by archaeologists)
shows that Neanderthals were familiar with La Cotte and probably returned to it
on many occasions during their annual movements in search of food.
At La Cotte, the archaeology shows Neanderthals in the process of cutting
meat from the - animals’ bodies and organising the process of butchery.
Body parts were moved around the bottom of the cliff - taken to
convenient places where stone tools could be used to cut them up into
shareable portions.
Whilst feeding Neanderthals would certainly have repaired their weapons; fragments
from stone tools show that they were resharpening knives and spear tips.
There is no evidence to suggest that the site was used as a camp: perhaps it was too
dangerous and attracted carnivores, or perhaps coastal breezes made it somewhat
unpleasant.
After a few days they would probably move on, returning time and time again until the
climate became too severe and the last of their kind died with the site being forgotten
for millennia.
Products and associated philatelic items
FDC |
Set of Mini-Sheets |
Presentation Pack |
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The Presentation Pack depicts the development of the Human Skull
over the course of time.
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First-Day-of-Issue Postmark |
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References:
Acknowledgements:
-
Many thanks to
Dr. Peter Voice from Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Western Michigan University,
for review of a draft of this article.