Lithics 2

Summarises a lecture given in 1981 based on research for the author's thesis, discussing a general tendency among archaeologists to focus on the raw material characteristics of artefacts. Despite extensive work on petrological identification of Neolithic stone axes from Britain, for example, there has never been a full consideration of the roles, values and functions of the axes. LD

The regular production and use of flint artefacts for everyday domestic activities is considered by British lithicists to have declined and ceased altogether within the later Bronze Age, but this has been challenged in the publication of flints from excavations at the Iron Age site of Meare West in Somerset. This article summarises objections to the claims that flint tools were manufactured and used at the site in the third century BC; the author remains sceptical that the assemblage is anything other than residual. LD

Paper based on a lecture given in 1980, covering research done for a thesis on the Neolithic in Norfolk. The relief and geology of the county are described, giving a background to the landscape and its past and present opportunities for settlement and agriculture. Preservation of occupation sites and bone is generally poor; lithic material thus makes an important contribution to interpretation of the local record. The distribution of different kinds of stone tools is described, and material from groups of sites at Hockwold-cum-Wilton and at Spong Hill is compared. The evidence strongly suggests there was functional continuity in the reoccupation of particular sites and areas. LD