John Wymer

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John James Wymer (undated)

John James Wymer (born March 5, 1928 in Richmond , Surrey , southern England , † February 10, 2006 in Southampton , Hampshire ) was a British archaeologist and expert on the period of the Old Paleolithic . The Times described him in an obituary as one of Britain's leading archaeologists “who helped pinpoint the early presence of humans in Britain.” In a British Academy biography , he became “the greatest field researcher in the field of the Paleolithic “Appreciated.

life and work

John Wymer grew up southwest of London , near Kew Gardens . He attended the elementary school of Richmond and East Sheen (now part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames ) and then the Shoreditch Training College in Egham , Surrey, a training facility for handicrafts teachers . His mother Lea played the piano to accompany silent films, his father Bertram was an illustrator and drew a comic strip called "Tiger Tim", and both of them often visited fossils and stone utensils with their son . One of these sites, in Little Thurrock (today part of the Thurrock parish ), was discovered by Wmer's father in 1911. In 1957 John Wymer published the first scientific description in which it was ascribed to Clactonia - the first site of this Paleolithic flint industry to be newly recognized for around 20 years .

After completing his college education, however, Wymer did not want to work as a teacher, instead he worked temporarily as a journalist and as an employee of the railroad. At the same time, he deepened his knowledge in the field of archeology, which he had acquired from childhood, through numerous visits to archaeological sites. Since his father had official permission to explore Barnfield Pit , the site of the Swanscombe skull discovered in 1936 , Wymer also worked there - and on July 30, 1955 discovered a hominine right parietal bone that could be assigned to the Swanscombe skull, the second oldest stone age human fossil discovered to date in Great Britain. This discovery, which caused a sensation in specialist circles at the time, and his archaeological knowledge led to his being hired as a curator at the Reading Museum in Reading in 1956, despite a lack of academic training , and staying there for nine years. In addition to preparing exhibitions, he analyzed the museum's collection of stone tools and conducted various excavations. During this time, the empirical basis for his first monograph, Lower Palaeolithic archeology in Britain as represented by the Thames Valley , a catalog of thousands of Stone Age finds, was created.

In 1965 he was recruited at the suggestion of Louis Leakey by Ronald Singer ( University of Chicago ) with the aim of exploring the location of the fossil Saldanha 1 and the Klasies River caves in South Africa ; the collaboration with Singer lasts until 1980. It was recovered in 1967/68 during the excavations in the caves and caves. a. one of the oldest fossils of an anatomically modern human ( Homo sapiens ) discovered in Africa . In 1968 Wymer returned to England and was involved in a project at the University of Chicago a. a. Involved in excavations in Hoxne and the eponymous site of the Clactonia . This was followed by a teaching position at the University of East Anglia (1979/80) and then until 1990 an employment at the Norfolk Archaeological Unit (today: NPS Archeology ).

Funded by English Heritage , he began in 1991 to catalog the storage locations of all ancient stone tools discovered in Great Britain. This overview was published in 1999 under the title The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain . His extensive card index of all known ancient and middle Paleolithic artifacts from Great Britain was secured by Wessex Archeology after his death with the aim of being permanently accessible to researchers.

His last important publication appeared in 2005 - like his first on the Swanscombe skull exactly 50 years earlier - in Nature , et al. a. with his drawings of flint artifacts from Pakefield ( Suffolk ), which are considered to be the oldest traces of human settlements discovered to date in northern Europe.

John Wymer died on February 10, 2006 after a brief illness in Southampton General Hospital. After a divorce since 1976, he was married to Mollie Spurling, who had died in 1999, for the second time. The bereaved include two sons and three daughters from his first marriage to Pauline May, whom he married in 1949.

Honors

  • In 1963 John Hymer was inducted into the Society of Antiquaries of London .
  • In 1969, he was from the University of Durham for Master of Arts honorary appointed.
  • In 1974 he was awarded the Geologists' Association's Henry Stopes Memorial Medal .
  • In 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Reading .
  • In 1996 he was accepted as a Fellow in the Archeology Section of the British Academy .
  • In 2002 he received the British Academy's Grahame Clark Medal .
  • The 16th Palaeolithic-Mesolithic Conference in Honor of John Wymer took place in the British Museum on September 21 and 22, 2006 .

Fonts (selection)

  • A Further Fragment of the Swanscombe Skull. In: Nature . Volume 176, 1955, pp. 426-427, doi: 10.1038 / 176426a0
  • with Ronald Singer : Archaeological Investigations at the Saldanha Skull Site in South Africa. In: The South African Archaeological Bulletin. Volume 23, No. 91, 1968, pp. 63-74, doi: 10.2307 / 3888485
  • with Ronald Singer: Radiocarbon Date for Two Painted Stones from a Coastal Cave in South Africa. In: Nature . Volume 224, 1969, pp. 508-510, doi: 10.1038 / 224508a0
  • with Ronald Singer: The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1982, ISBN 978-0-2267-6103-9
  • Palaeolithic Age. Palgrave Macmillan, 1984, ISBN 978-0-31259477-0
  • Palaeolithic sites of East Anglia. Geo Books, Norwich 1985, ISBN 978-0-86094147-7
  • Palaeolithic archeology and the British Quaternary Sequence. In: Quaternary Science Reviews. Volume 7, 1988, pp. 79-98. doi: 10.1016 / 0277-3791 (88) 90095-9
  • with Ronald Singer and Bruce G. Gladfelter (Eds.): The Lower Paleolithic Site at Hoxne, England. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1993, ISBN 978-0-2267-6111-4

literature

  • Clive Gamble: John James Wymer 1928-2006. In: Proceedings of the British Academy. Volume 150 (= Biographical Memoirs of Fellows. Volume VI), 2008, ISBN 978-0-19726423-2 , doi: 10.5871 / bacad / 9780197264232.003.0016
  • Nick Ashton, Simon G. Lewis, Chris Stringer : Introduction: The Palaeolithic occupation of Europe. A tribute to John J. Wymer, 1928-2006. In: Journal of Quarternary Science. Volume 21, 2006, pp. 421-424, doi: 10.1002 / jqs.1046 , full text
  • Janette Deacon: Ronald Singer (1924-2006) and John Wymer (1928-2006). In: South African Archaeological Bulletin. Volume 61, No. 183, 2006, pp. 115–116 (ISSN: 0038-1969)
  • Nick Ashton, Frances Healy, Paul Pettit (Eds.): Stone Age Archeology. Essays in Honor of John Wymer. (= Oxbow monograph 102, also: Lithic Studies Society occasional paper 6). Oxford 1998, ISBN 978-1-90018866-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b The Essex Field Club: John James Wymer (1928-2006), Stone Age Archaeologist At: essexfieldclub.org.uk
  2. ↑ John Wymer: Expert on Lower Paleolithic archeology who helped to define the early presence of people in Britain. On: thetimes.co.uk of March 18, 2006
  3. ↑ Clive Gamble: John James Wymer 1928-2006. In: Proceedings of the British Academy. Volume 150 (= Biographical Memoirs of Fellows. Volume VI), 2008, ISBN 978-0-19726423-2 , doi: 10.5871 / bacad / 9780197264232.003.0016
  4. ↑ John Wymer: A Clactonian Flint Industry at Little Thurrock, Grays, Essex. In: Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. Volume 68, No. 2, 1957, pp. 159-177, doi: 10.1016 / S0016-7878 (57) 80012-1
  5. ^ A b c John McNabb: John Wymer: An Appreciation. In: Lithics. No. 26, 2005, access to the full text
  6. ^ John Wymer: Lower Palaeolithic archeology in Britain as represented by the Thames Valley. John Baker, London 1968.
  7. ^ Obituary in: Past. The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society. No. 52, 2006. On: le.ac.uk , last viewed on May 8, 2019
  8. ^ John Wymer: The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain. Trust for Wessex Archeology Ltd., Salisbury 1999, ISBN 978-1-87435029-3
  9. ↑ note on Terps - The English Rivers Project on archaeologydataservice.ac.uk the University of York
  10. ^ Simon A. Parfitt et al .: The earliest record of human activity in northern Europe. In: Nature . Volume 438, 2005, pp. 1008-1012, doi: 10.1038 / nature04227
  11. ^ Society of Antiquaries of London: Anniversary Address and Annual Report, 2006. At: sal.org.uk
  12. ^ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archeology: John James Wymer. On: oxfordreference.com
  13. ↑ Dr John Wymer FBA, 1928-2006. On: thebritishacademy.ac.uk
  14. ↑ Grahame Clark Medal. On: thebritishacademy.ac.uk.
  15. ↑ Quaternary Research Association circular of June 2006, p. 23
personal data
SURNAME Wymer, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wymer, John James (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Richmond , Surrey , southern England
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 2006
Place of death Southampton , Hampshire