| Issue Date | 12.10.2010 |
| ID | Michel: 1521-1525 Scott : Stanley Gibbons: Yvert: UPU: Category : pR |
| Author | Illustrator: Nick Shewring |
| Stamps in set | 5 |
| Value | - 39p - Human Teeth - 45p - Woolly Rhinoceros Skull - 55p - Woolly Mammoth Tusks & Tooth - 60p - Flint Tools - 80p - Giant Deer Antler |
| Size (width x height) | 40mm x 30mm |
| Layout | sheets of ten (2 across x 5 down) |
| Products | FDC x1 MC MS x5 |
| 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 | |
| Issuing Authority | Jersey Post Ltd |
On 12th October 2010, Jersey Post
has 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 depicting
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 are:Human Teeth,
Woolly Rhinoceros skull, Woolly
Mammoth Tusks & Tooth, Flint Tools,Giant
Deer Antler
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 A ge, 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 marnmoths. 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 marnmoths 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 landscqoes 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 farmiliar 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 pats 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 perhtps 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.
| FDC | Mini Sheets |
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| Presentation Pack | |
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References :Presentation Pack
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Latest update 09.11.2017
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