A Pleistocene hunting trap
On the southwestern coast of Jersey, the granite headland of La Cotte de St Brelade contains a deep, T-shaped ravine system. For over 200,000 years, this natural feature was a hunting ground for Neanderthals. The site is most known for two dense heaps of animal bones discovered at the base of the ravine. These piles contain the remains of Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) and Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis). The original interpretation, first proposed by archaeologist Katharine Scott, was that Neanderthal groups worked together to drive herds of these megafauna over the cliff edge, using the ravine as a natural trap.
During multiple Ice Ages, sea levels were significantly lower than today, and Jersey was not an island. It was a high, rocky plateau connected to the plains of what is now northern France, with a view of the surrounding cold, tundra-like landscape. This vantage point would have been used for spotting and tracking the movements of large herds. The ravine, filled with over 40 meters of sediment deposits, has preserved a long record of this repeated activity. Excavations have revealed at least 13 distinct episodes of Neanderthal occupation, with the earliest dating back around 250,000 years and the most recent to approximately 48,000 years ago. While the "mammoth drive" theory is debated by some modern researchers, the bone piles show Neanderthal skill in hunting and butchering Ice Age megafauna.
A quarter-million years of occupation
The long history of La Cotte de St Brelade makes it a significant Middle Palaeolithic sites in Europe. The first formal excavations began around 1910 under Robert R. Marett, who recovered early evidence of Neanderthal habitation. More extensive work was carried out by a Cambridge University team led by Charles McBurney between 1961 and 1978. These excavations uncovered more than 200,000 stone tools.
The tools are primarily of the Mousterian type, a technology strongly associated with Neanderthals. Finds include hand axes and sharp flakes, some made from high-quality flint that must have been carried to the site from sources many kilometers away. The most direct evidence of the site's inhabitants comes from the discovery of 13 Neanderthal teeth and a fragment of a skull. Analysis of the teeth, dated to as recently as 47,000 years ago, suggests they belong to at least two different individuals and show characteristics of both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, pointing to a possible shared ancestry. Today, the site is threatened by coastal erosion, and access is restricted to protect its fragile deposits for future study.