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The first find I made on day one at the site was a very nice knife. It was made on a core flake and retouched to form the pointed tip. Happy days I thought...but the age was a mystery.
My first thoughts were based on the patination and style. Flint in my area is grey/black when fresh and then weathers variously to a dull grey (Neolithic) and grey-white (Mesolithic). Brilliant white or light brown are reserved for Palaeolithic time scales.
But there is always the soil acidity/alkalinity, localised geology and surface exposure to take into consideration; before patination alone can be given any weighting in discerning age/period.
If this knife were indeed Mesolithic then the patina was all wrong. But could it be that the local conditions (geology) had produced this anomaly ?
However, if the patination was right and thus older then I had a bigger problem, the knife was made on a flake, which really only became a common method of fabrication in the late Upper Palaeolithic (UP) and is really characterised by the Mesolithic. So I had a real problem. I wanted it to be older (Palaeolithic), but how could I be convinced that it wasn't Mesolithic.
The next issue, even if it were UP then which species of hominid: Neanderthal or Early Modern Human (EMH) ?
I am aware that EMH brought flake tools to Europe and the story goes that Neanderthals copied them with crude versions. How crude is open to debate, but it seems that EMH artefacts from Britain are on fine small blades. Neanderthal blades are usually bigger. I think this is a generalisation and the seriously low number of proven Neanderthal sites (in the UK) makes the statement difficult to categorically substantiate.
An hour later and the mystery was resolved....a handaxe (biface) from the same horizon, in the same brown patina flint. Handaxes are a tool that was used throughout the Palaeolithic and ended with the Neanderthals and not one attributed to EMH hunter gatherers.
A handaxe - in isolation - could be attributed to any age from 500,000 years old to 60,000 .....Lower Palaeolithic (LP) through to UP. But flake knives of this design are not a feature of the LP or MP. They are a technology that becomes popular in the late UP.
So together, the knife and handaxe complement each other, giving a compelling argument for an Upper Palaeolithic settlement; provided both are contemporaneous.
So I had a Neanderthal handaxe and Neanderthal knife....what a brilliant day.
Later in the day I found a large scraper too which is a tool type that alters little in Britain from the UP to the Bronze Age. The small thumbnail ones tend to be Neolithic, but the large ovate ones are timeless.
Finding it alongside the UP handaxe and knife is suggestive of an early date, but the patina was more of a grey/brown and thus potentially younger.
The same field also gave up two small (dark grey) Mesolithic blades and masses of the brown coloured (UP) flakes and 6 core stones (in the same colour).
The core stones are interesting in that the flake scars are all large flakes, not the typical small ones you see on Mesolithic/Neolithic cores.
When I found the handaxe I noticed the tip was gone and at first I imagined the plough had smashed it off. But with my reading glasses on and cleaning it at home I could see that it had in fact been subject to contemporary sharpening. The photos below show how the tip has been removed with flakes running into the axe from one facet (not tranchet flakes). It is possible that it was sharpened several times as the tip is much reduced.
Enough of my typing ...some pictures
My first thoughts were based on the patination and style. Flint in my area is grey/black when fresh and then weathers variously to a dull grey (Neolithic) and grey-white (Mesolithic). Brilliant white or light brown are reserved for Palaeolithic time scales.
But there is always the soil acidity/alkalinity, localised geology and surface exposure to take into consideration; before patination alone can be given any weighting in discerning age/period.
If this knife were indeed Mesolithic then the patina was all wrong. But could it be that the local conditions (geology) had produced this anomaly ?
However, if the patination was right and thus older then I had a bigger problem, the knife was made on a flake, which really only became a common method of fabrication in the late Upper Palaeolithic (UP) and is really characterised by the Mesolithic. So I had a real problem. I wanted it to be older (Palaeolithic), but how could I be convinced that it wasn't Mesolithic.
The next issue, even if it were UP then which species of hominid: Neanderthal or Early Modern Human (EMH) ?
I am aware that EMH brought flake tools to Europe and the story goes that Neanderthals copied them with crude versions. How crude is open to debate, but it seems that EMH artefacts from Britain are on fine small blades. Neanderthal blades are usually bigger. I think this is a generalisation and the seriously low number of proven Neanderthal sites (in the UK) makes the statement difficult to categorically substantiate.
An hour later and the mystery was resolved....a handaxe (biface) from the same horizon, in the same brown patina flint. Handaxes are a tool that was used throughout the Palaeolithic and ended with the Neanderthals and not one attributed to EMH hunter gatherers.
A handaxe - in isolation - could be attributed to any age from 500,000 years old to 60,000 .....Lower Palaeolithic (LP) through to UP. But flake knives of this design are not a feature of the LP or MP. They are a technology that becomes popular in the late UP.
So together, the knife and handaxe complement each other, giving a compelling argument for an Upper Palaeolithic settlement; provided both are contemporaneous.
So I had a Neanderthal handaxe and Neanderthal knife....what a brilliant day.
Later in the day I found a large scraper too which is a tool type that alters little in Britain from the UP to the Bronze Age. The small thumbnail ones tend to be Neolithic, but the large ovate ones are timeless.
Finding it alongside the UP handaxe and knife is suggestive of an early date, but the patina was more of a grey/brown and thus potentially younger.
The same field also gave up two small (dark grey) Mesolithic blades and masses of the brown coloured (UP) flakes and 6 core stones (in the same colour).
The core stones are interesting in that the flake scars are all large flakes, not the typical small ones you see on Mesolithic/Neolithic cores.
When I found the handaxe I noticed the tip was gone and at first I imagined the plough had smashed it off. But with my reading glasses on and cleaning it at home I could see that it had in fact been subject to contemporary sharpening. The photos below show how the tip has been removed with flakes running into the axe from one facet (not tranchet flakes). It is possible that it was sharpened several times as the tip is much reduced.
Enough of my typing ...some pictures
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