Abstract

More than 20 UK Quaternary sites are reliably related to MIS 7 of the global marine isotope stage framework. This interglacial has a distinctive O18 :O16 profile of an early warm peak (MIS 7e) followed by a well-defined cooler episode (MIS 7d), which is followed in turn by a double warm peak (MIS 7c and MIS 7a) divided by a minor cool episode (MIS 7b). Foremost among UK MIS 7 sites is the Ebbsfleet Valley, a minor tributary on the south side of the Thames estuary. Here, approximately half a dozen separate localities have provided evidence of sequences from MIS 7 , ranging from localities first investigated in the 1930s to currently-unpublished localities investigated as part of the HS1 archaeological programme. When the disparate palaeo-environmental, litho-stratigraphic and dating evidence from these Ebbsfleet localities is considered as a whole, a picture emerges in which all three warm MIS 7 peaks can be recognised and distinguished from each other, and their distinctive palaeo-environmental and biostratigraphic characteristics can thus provide the framework within which other UK sites should be integrated.