The British Palaeolithicprovides the first academic synthesis of the entire British Palaeolithic, from the earliest occupation (possibly around 700,000 years ago) to the end of the Ice Age. Landscape and ecology form the canvas for an explicitly interpretative approach aimed at understanding how different hominin societies addressed the issues of life at the edge of the Pleistocene world. The book begins with a consideration of the physical character, environments and faunal communities of the earliest Pleistocene of Britain '¬ ; apparently before the arrival of hominins, and places the earliest settlement in this ecological context, a theme which follows throughout the book in the consideration of subsequent occupational pulses down to the end of the Pleistocene and the question of whether Final Palaeolithic communities formed a population root for the Mesolithic societies of the Holocene. The British Palaeolithicfills a major gap in teaching resources as well as in research by providing a current synthesis of the latest research on the period. This book represents the culmination of 40 years combined research in this area by two well known experts in the field, and is an important new text for students of British archaeology as well continental Palaeolithic students and researchers.

Dr Paul Pettitt is Reader in Palaeolithic Archaeology at Sheffield University specialises in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic of Britain. He is the author of The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial (Routledge 2010). Dr Mark White is Reader in Archaeology at Durham University and specialises in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Britain.