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Search forWICKFORD: Archaeologists find 8,000-year-old artefacts
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 09:38
Hundreds of rare flint blades and post holes thought to be where once stood a dwelling, home to a small band of Stone Age hunter-gatherers, have already been discovered on the scrubland.
The site off Nevendon Road in Wickford has caused huge excitement among archaeologists because it is rare to find such an undisturbed snapshot of daily activity.
John Moore, who is heading up a team of 18 experts sifting through the hundreds of Mesolithic finds, said: "It is very rare to find a site which has not been disturbed by ploughing or modern agriculture.
"The artefacts we are finding are exactly where they were dropped some 8,000 years ago.
"This means we look at their distribution, which will help piece together details of daily life in the settlement like where people would eat, where they went to the toilet, what they ate. It is very exciting.
"We are excavating an area where we think people would work the flints into tiny razor-sharp blades. They were exceptionally skilled craftsmen."
Mr Moore's Oxfordshire-based company, John Moore Heritage Services, has carried out hundreds of digs across the south-east over the last 10 years, but this is one of the most revealing.
It is thought the site, just north of where the A127 now runs, was inhabited by an extended family of around 10 people who chose the area for its good water supply.
The semi-nomadic people would have erected a tent-like structure where the post holes have been found, which could have been dismantled as and when they needed to move to find new sources of food or follow the movements of animals.
The team of archaeologists, who are just a few weeks into a three-month dig, have also excavated pottery fragments thought to date to the late Bronze Age, around 5,000 years ago, as well as medieval material.
Work on the proposed waste management facility at nearby Courtauld Road in Basildon has been put on hold while excavations continue.
Essex County Council was ordered to carry out an archaeological investigation into the cultural heritage of the site after putting in the plans for the building work.
A council spokesman said: "A programme of controlled topsoil strip and excavation of deposits is now taking place.
"This work will be completed before any earthworks take place, and the proposed development will not have any adverse effects on the built heritage or the historic landscape."
The artefacts will soon be exhibited at Southend Museum.
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JOY: Gwilym Williams holds up an axe cut from a flint at the site in Wickford.
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