A pot from the Thames Estuary

A coil pot made from London Clay 2022, collected from the mouth of the Thames Estuary where the river meets the North Sea. This area of land is made up of sedimentary bedrock formed approximately 56 million years ago, during the Palaeogene period. Some of the UK’s earliest civilisations settled around the Thames - from hunter-gatherers to Romans - and in more recent centuries the land has borne witness to industrialisation, the exploits of the British Empire, and a global trade network that endures to this day.