Abstract: A small area of the chalk escarpment north-west of Pitstone Hill, Buckinghamshire, is described. Quarrying has cut into two scarp face coombes lined with unbedded chalk rubble (coombe rock). Overlying this are deposits which on stratigraphical and faunal grounds are assigned to the Late-glacial period of the Weichselian Glaciation. A thin humic band is a constant feature and is considered to be a soil developed during the Allerød Interstadial (Zone II). Humic chalk muds above the Late-glacial deposits are assigned to the Post-glacial period and at their base in one of the coombes is a well developed soil.Samples were taken through the deposits and the land Mollusca extracted. The fauna in the Late-glacial deposits is a limited one of open country character and compares closely with faunas in Late-glacial deposits in Kent. In places the soil shows a double profile; on faunal grounds this feature is taken as perhaps reflecting a double peak in the Allerød Interstadial. In the buried soil at the base of the humic chalk muds a rich fauna, characteristic of the Post-glacial period, is present. At the very base of this soil there is evidence of an environment of closed woodland. The soil shows clearance through its profile from woodland at the base to a landscape of scrub and grassland in its upper levels. The formation of the humic chalk muds above is assigned to ploughing. They have a fauna characteristic of dry open grassland.Two archaeological features were examined. A ditch cut into the Zone III gravels yielded a fauna characteristic of the earlier part of the Post-glacial, containing species of Mollusca which are now extinct or rare in southern England. A Medieval chalk pit dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century yielded a woodland fauna more characteristic of the site at the present day and impoverished by comparison with the fauna from the ditch.Suggestions are made for further lines of research on subaerial deposits, and methods for dealing with such deposits are discussed.

EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Santé/explor/EdenteV2/Data/Istex/Corpus

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{{Explor lien
   |wiki=    Wicri/Santé
   |area=    EdenteV2
   |flux=    Istex
   |étape=   Corpus
   |type=    RBID
   |clé=     ISTEX:432FD5DCB235B378969EB498FDF74C1514D2812C
   |texte=   Late-Glacial and Post-Glacial subaerial deposits at Pitstone, Buckinghamshire
}}