This doesn't really surprise me as the Thames is truly our ancient and sacred waterway. One of it's many sources being by Silbury/Avebury. I live not too far from its official beginnings in Cricklade and have observed small local rivers that start as streams and feed into it. Last week I was in London and walked the length of the South Bank - what an amazing river. You cannot help but wonder how ancient peoples navigated such a massive tidal flow before there were bridges. Highly skilled sea faring people I'm sure.

I'm still trying to find the Museum of London, haven't been there yet and on that occasion last week was distracted by the Tate Modern.

Thanks so much for posting this.

I was particularly struck by this comment by the curator, in her discussion of hunter-gatherers haunting the 'open woodland landscape' around the Thames:

“They didn’t really build and didn’t create rubbish. They were perfect for the ecosystem..."

Such a poignant reminder in this time of ecological catastrophe, with plastic choking the oceans, etc., that humankind could actually exist this way. I often think, as we all do, of where it all went wrong: the Neolithic. Richard Bradley's Significance of Monuments has some fascinating things to say about the ideological conflict between early Neolithics and Mesolithic holdouts in Europe, the latter reminding one of modern luddites or those of us loathe to abandon the old for the new (analog for digital!).

So, it's odd that Dr. Redfern should speak of Neolithic Londoners as perfect for the ecosystem. If they were hunter-gatherers and weren't clearing land for farming - weren't building or leaving behind archaeological traces as she notes - then how were they Neolithic? Is she suggesting there was an Old School scene in London during the New Stone Age in the rest of Britain?