John Lubbock’s Early Contribution to the Understanding of River Terraces and Their Importance to Geography, Archaeology and Earth Science

In his writings John Lubbock expounded views on the understanding of past climates, prehistoric faunas, early humans, and the evolution of landscape and river systems. His contributions on some of these related topics are scarcely remembered, despite comparison with modern thinking showing them frequently to have been prescient. He visited the Somme valley, observing river terrace gravels and Palaeolithic artefacts in the company of the leading geologists and archaeologists of his day, visits that furnished knowledge of the early archaeological record and were also formative in terms of his understanding of river-valley and landscape evolution. He noted that terraces represented former valley-floor levels and that rivers had deepened their valleys in response to uplift of the land, something that is often not fully grasped at the present time. He was also an early believer in interglacial–glacial climatic fluctuation, an idea not widely accepted in Britain until after his death.