From Ice Age to Essex - Pamela Greenwood

This book presents a short history of human habitation in East
London, based on archaeological findings at gravel sites between
1963 and 1999. To find the beginning of this story we have to go
back half a million years, to the time when advancing ice sheets
pushed the Thames southwards to its present course, depositing
the river gravels that exist across East London today.
Archaeological work on the East London gravels began when finds
from gravel pits were given to local collectors and museums. Many
spectacular discoveries were made in the era when gravel was dug
by hand; they include a Roman stone coffin found near Dagenham in
1928 and the rich Early Saxon cemetery with glass drinking horns
from Gerpin's Pit, Rainham, uncovered in 1937. The archaeological
sites which make up this story have names which speak of a time
before London's urban sprawl reached eastwards: Manor Farm, Great
Sunnings Farm, Whitehall Wood, Great Arnold's Field and Fairlop
Quarry, to name but a few. Discoveries have revealed the ancient
landscapes of East London and a history of human occupation from
the third millennium BC right up to the 19th century. The finds
include evidence of where people lived, and how they made a
living and viewed themselves. These settlement patterns, economic
systems and cultural identities changed over time and contributed
to the form of today's East London.