East–West European Middle Pleistocene
correlation – the contribution of the first British
record of Aracites interglacialis Wieliczk.
1
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, van Steenisgebouw, Einsteinweg 2, Leiden 2333CC,
The Netherlands
2
Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge,
Downing Place, Cambridge, United Kingdom. CB2 3EN
Online publication date: 2017-06-15
Publication date: 2017-06-15
Acta Palaeobotanica 2017; 57(1): 101–108
ABSTRACT
Reported here is the first record of the extinct Aracites interglacialis Wieliczk. (possibly in the family
Araceae) from the British Pleistocene at Gilson, Warwickshire in the English Midlands.
The palynological assemblages from the Aracites interglacialis seed-bearing sediments at Gilson support
a correlation with those from the Hoxnian stratotype at Hoxne, Suffolk, England (Middle Pleistocene). The data
indicate correlation with the middle and latter part of the Hoxnian Stage (correlated with the Holsteinian Stage).
Like at Hoxne, the organic sediments at Gilson occur in a small depression (probably a kettle hole) on Anglian
cold Stage (correlated with the Elsterian Stage) outwash sands and gravels, showing that they were deposited
after this glaciation ended.
Velichkevich et al. (2004) stated that Aracites interglacialis “is characteristic only of the Mazovian interglacial
and is abundant in fossil floras in Poland, Belarus and Russia”. Using the presence of Aracites interglacialis
as a biostratigraphic marker therefore allows the correlation of the British Hoxnian Stage with the Belarussian
Alexandrian Stage, Polish Mazovian Stage and the Russian Likhvinian Stage.
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