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Description: | Complete Mesolithic flint axe/pick. Hazel Martingell notes: The axe/pick measures 92mm long, 36mm wide, 27mm thick and weighs 88.96g. It is made on light grey flint with inclusions and has an area of brown staining. The knapping technique consists of precise flaking on the curved surface with more random removals across the steeper side. The flat surface is probably a natural break along the cleavage plane. The irregular nature of the artefact suggests that originally the axe was bigger and was substantially modified and reduced in size to form a pick, a fabricator or a punch. This piece was recovered from a shallow scoop containing Neolithic pottery to the east of a ring ditch. The presence of large diagnostic flint artefacts on a site is always of interest. Usually, it is accepted that they are indicators of people utilising that location during a particular period in prehistory. But it is also possible, that later peoples recover these artefacts from elsewhere and bring them back for their own use. At this site however, there are additional finds of smaller worked flints of Mesolithic, Neolithic and later activity at the site. Close by at an Iron Age site, a Mesolithic rod microlith was recovered in 2005. Microliths of the obliquely backed variety have also been found at nearby Halstead and Ford Street. There are many more finds of Neolithic flint artefacts, axes turn up singly or within groups of smaller artefacts, as at Fordham. These other sites, here referred to, are also in river valley locations, beside the river. It should be born in mind, that in the past, they would have been liable to flooding, or the river may even have changed course, so we could be looking at seasonal use rather than permanent habitation during the Mesolithic and Neolithic at this site.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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