NHER 55437 (Find Spot record) - Unprovenanced worked flints of predominantly Neolithic date, south-west Norfolk (Norfolk, poorly located)

Private collection. Gathered c.1911-14.

1911-1914.
A collection of 28 flint artefacts and 7 fossils was inherited by an individual from his father and known to have been in the family for at least 30 years when submitted for recording in 2010. The collection is loose in a cardboard box lined by a sheet from the Eastern Daily Press of August 12th 1948. There is also an accompanying yellowed sheet of paper with the following heading:

“FLINT IMPLEMENTS collected by . . . late of Stoke Ferry, Beechamwell and Necton, about 1911-1914, mostly Neolithic, i.e. New Stone Age, 3000-1800 B.C.”

There follows a brief catalogue of the 26 (numbered) flint items. These original catalogue entries are reproduced in the descriptive passages included in each find record, set within brackets before the recent description. The majority of the objects (25) are recorded as having come from south-west Norfolk but have no additional information regarding provenance. A new number of the objects do however have more precise locational information and have been recorded seperately. Three are from Toot Hill, Beachamwell (NHER 4530), one is from Beachemwell Glebe (NHER 13317) and one is from "Thetford (NHER ????).

The majority of the unprovenanced pieces are of definate or probable Neolithic date, including two broken polished axes, an adze, three cores, four scrapers, a possible knife, a scraper/knife combination tool, a retouched piece and two Early Neolithic 'laurel leaf' bifacial implements. One scraper is possible Mesolithic or early Neolithic in date. A flake, a notched piece, a scraper and a possible scraper are prehistoric but otherwise undatable. The collection also includes a possible strike-a-light of uncertain date.

A. Rogerson (HES), 13 October 2011. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 3 June 2013.