Category Archives: Neolithic

VM_365 Day 186 Courtstairs cow skull pins down Old Father Time

Archaeology, Neolithic, Prehistoric pottery, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 187For our image on Day 186 of the VM_365 project and the first day of 2015, we have an object that has been significant to measuring the passage of time in one of the significant sites for the Neolithic archaeology of Thanet.

Among the deposits filling the deep pits hat made up the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Pegwell were many fragments of bone, mainly representing large cattle species.  Large skull fragments. representing part of  the front of the head with the horn cores attached, were found in  two of the pits. In both cases the skull fragments were lying in the deposits that were close to the base and therefore early in the sequence. The one pictured today is lying on the front of the skull so the interior is exposed uppermost.

The animal remains have a tale to tell in themselves, presenting archaeologists with questions such as  what species were present, what parts of the animal are represented and how they have been incorporated into the deposits. However, another property of the organic animal bone is that it can be used to provide a fixed point in time by using it to obtain a radiocarbon date.

The position of the skull shown in the image was carefully recorded in the sequence of excavated deposits. If  a scientific method like carbon dating can give an absolute date  to one part of the sequence, it can be used to infer a similar date  for all the material associated with it.  The dating of the skull to 3636-3625 cal. BC has been used to confirm with independent data the suspected period when the distinctive Early Neolithic pottery recovered from the site and shown in VM_365 Day 172 was made. The absolute date given by the skull also helps to understand the dating of the large assemblage of flintwork, including the fine flint sickle shown on Day 173.

Dating a fixed point in the sequence also gives a relative date for the deposits that lie above it in the sequence, they must be some degree later than the date obtained. Ideally a number of dates needs to be obtained to strengthen the argument for dating the whole sequence but resources were limited on this site and it has only been possible to carry out one carbon dating so far. With limited resources the choice of material to date  becomes significant, making the cattle skull fragments that were deposited so low in the sequence of soils filling the pits very important to dating the site.

Using the possibilities of scientific dating methods to explore an object like the skull, archaeologists can examine the problems of a site from different angles, adding to our understanding of both the fixed and relative dates of our excavated sequences of deposits. This skull payed its part in one strategy to understand the absolute chronology of the development of a site, determining exactly when certain events occurred.

 

VM_365 Day 172 Early Neolithic Pottery from Ramsgate

Archaeology, Neolithic, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
VM 172Today’s VM_365 image for Day 172 shows one of the sherds of pottery found  in 2007 in the ditch fills of an Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Court Stairs, Ramsgate.
This sherd is typical of the Southern Decorated tradition which was current during the second half of the Early Neolithic, broadly datable to between c.3600-3350 BC. In this case, the sherd has been indirectly dated by Carbon dating of an ox skull to 3636-3625 cal. BC.

VM_365 Day 171 A feast of flintwork, blades from Neolithic site at Pegwell

Archaeology, From the Archives, Neolithic, Ramsgate, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Selection of flint baldes from Neolithic site at Pegwell Bay
Selection of flint blades from Neolithic site at Pegwell Bay

Today’s image for VM_365 Day 171 is of a selection of blade flakes from the flintwork that was found in an excavation on a site at Courtstairs, near Pegwell Bay in 2007.

Although only one stretch of conjoined pits forming a curving line were exposed in the excavation, the finds from the site showed that a sample of the second Neolithic Causewayed enclosure to be found in Ramsgate area had been revealed.

Most of the finely worked flint dated to the Earlier Neolithic period, however a significant proportion was residual, with only a few contexts containing only fresh-looking single period lithics.  Other contexts had a mix of fresh and earlier residual material.

Many blade flakes were recovered from the pit fills, some contexts producing significant quantities. Finely worked blades and bladelets which had been soft hammer-struck from blade cores were particularly common, with serrated blades frequently represented.

The flintwork form this site is a rich source of information on the craft and technology in use in this period and there will be more to come from this site in future VM_365 posts.

 

 

VM_365 Day 168 Retouched Flint Arrowhead

Archaeology, Beaker, Bronze Age, Cliffsend, Neolithic, Places, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 168

Today’s VM_365 Day 168 image shows a late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age arrowhead from Cliffsend.
This barbed and tanged arrowhead had broken along one of the barbs and instead of being discarded, the edge was retouched so it could be reused.

Other examples of flint objects that have been reworked into a useable object following damaged were posted for Day 165 and Day 50.

VM_365 Day 136 Ramsgate Late Neolithic Grooved Ware sherd

Archaeology, From the Archives, In the Store, Lord of the Manor, Neolithic, Ramsgate, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Late Neolithic Grooved Ware sherd
Late Neolithic Grooved Ware sherd

Today’s Image for VM_365 is of a small scrap of Late Neolithic pottery from 1976 excavation of the ring ditch of one of the ceremonial enclosures at Lord of the Manor, Ramsgate.

The sherd is a rim fragment from a tub-shaped vessel with a small-diameter. The exterior of the rim is decorated with incised grooves, the inner edge of the rim has a distinctive bevel, similar to the rims of other examples of this type of pottery. The typical decoration of the sherd with a pattern of grooves in the surface, provides the name that has been given to this ceramic tradition; Grooved Ware.

Before flat based grooved ware vessels began to manufactured, all Early and Middle Neolithic pottery in this country was made with round bases. Grooved Ware is believed to have been first used in the Orkneys, spreading southward across Britain and seems to represent the only truly ‘homegrown’ tradition in the entire history of British ceramics.

The style of decoration on this sherd, coupled with the beveled rim,  places the sherd into the Durrington Walls style, which was current during the main building phases at Stonehenge and is dated to c.2800-2300 BC

To date the tiny sherd pictured here seems to the best example of Grooved Ware archaeologists have recovered on the Isle of Thanet. Although it is small, the sherd  is a valuable hint that there may be more evidence of this important period of settlement to discover in the future.

The image and information for today’s VM_365 post were kindly provided by a guest curator, ceramic specialist Mr Nigel Macpherson-Grant

In 2007 a group of potters experimented with manufacturing Grooved Ware vessels, follow this link to the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group website article on the process.

VM_365 Day 134 Flint butcher’s knife from Lord of the Manor, Ramsgate

Archaeology, Bronze Age, In the Store, Lord of the Manor, Neolithic, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Flint knife of Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age date
Flint knife of Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age date, suited for butchering animal carcasses.

Day 134’s  VM_365 image is of a flint knife, a prehistoric flint tool, that had been re-deposited in the fill of a chalk quarry pit dating to the medieval period and sectioned in excavations carried out in 2013.

The knife  has been carefully flaked on both sides, it is slightly thinner and curved on the cutting edge. It is comfortable to hold in the hand and could have been used without being set in a wooden or bone handle or haft.  The manufacture and use of this type of flint tool spans the  Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age c.2800-1700 BC.

The knife would have been used for everyday meat processing tasks, although it is definitely not a skinning knife, which are usually thin and often polished for the careful task of smoothly separating hide from flesh. Because it is a thick and heavy tool,  it would have been ideal for butchering tasks; cutting joints; separating limbs and other heavy tasks.

VM_365 Day 92. Promoting Pride in a Prehistoric Presence

Archaeology, Beaker, Bronze Age, Education, Iron Age, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Images of Prehistoric Thanet
Images from Prehistoric Thanet

Today’s image for Day 91 of VM_365 is a reminder that Thanet’s past extends long into the prehistoric period. Our archaeological record has some of the most interesting and important evidence of the earliest periods of human settlement.

There is evidence from Thanet from the period of the earliest of our human ancestors, and from the first hunter gatherers who ranged over the landscape after the last Ice Age hundreds of thousands of years later.

There have been archaeological finds from all the periods recognised by prehistorians, from those Mesolithic hunters thorough the Neolithic, Beaker, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Six thousand years of our human story are represented only by archaeological finds and sites and some of the most important have been discovered on the Isle of Thanet. Prehistory is now part of the school curriculum and it should be in the mind of anyone interested in the long story of the Isle of Thanet.

 

VM_365 Day 80: Late Neolithic Polished Axe, Margate

Margate, Neolithic, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Project

VM 365 80Today’s image shows a very large, polished, late Neolithic flint axe from Northdown, Margate. The axe was found in 1940 by a Mr Kelf while he was digging an Air Raid shelter behind his shop on Northdown Road.

The axe is unused and made of non-local flint. The true reason for making it is unclear; it may have been more a status object rather than a useful tool, or perhaps,  for ceremonial use, or maybe it was made to show off the skill of its creator. We can only guess at its purpose.

VM_365 Day 50 Neolithic Polished Flint Axe from Woodchurch, Birchington

Archaeology, Birchington, Neolithic, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

50

Today’s image is of a late Neolithic polished flint axe found during fieldwalking at Woodchurch, Birchington in 2011.

This polished axe may originally have been intended as a status symbol or for ceremonial purposes and it would have taken many hours of polishing to achieve the beautifully smooth surface. On being broken, the ends have been reworked to become a useful hand tool.

Other examples of polished axes found on Thanet can be seen in the Neolithic gallery of the Virtual Musuem.