Swanscombe
| Swanscombe | |
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_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1411878.jpg) All Saints Church, Swanscombe |
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 Swanscombe
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| Swanscombe shown within Kent | |
| Population | 6,300 (2005) |
| OS grid reference | TQ598747 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | SWANSCOMBE |
| Postcode district | DA10 |
| Dialling code | 01322 |
| Police | Kent |
| Fire | Kent |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | |
Swanscombe is a small town in the Dartford Borough of Kent. It borders the Gravesham Borough. It is located north-west of Gravesend. At the 2011 Census the population is included in the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe.
Bone fragments and tools, representing the earliest humans known to have lived in England, have been found from 1935 onwards at the Barnfield Pit about 2 km (1 mile) outside the village. This site is now the Swanscombe Heritage Park. Swanscombe Man (now thought to be female) was a late Homo erectus or an early Archaic Homo sapiens. The c. 400,000-year-old skull fragments are kept at the Natural History Museum in London with a replica on display at the Dartford Museum. Lower levels of the Barnfield Pit yielded evidence of an even earlier, more primitive human, dubbed Clactonian Man.
Nearby digs on land for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link revealed a c. 400,000-year-old site with human tools and the remains of a Straight-tusked Elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), and evidence of water vole, pine vole, newts, frogs etc., indicating a site with standing water. (See below for discovery details).
During archaeological work undertaken at Ebbsfleet, before construction of High Speed 1, an Anglo-Saxon mill and a Roman villa were found near Swanscombe.
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Wikipedia