Asfordby, Leicestershire#
Lynden Cooper, University of Leicester Archaeological Services#
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Archaeological evaluation ahead of a proposed housing development revealed a discrete scatter of lithics and calcined bone preserved within an early Holocene palaeosol. Joint funding from Jelsons Ltd and English Heritage has allowed a programme of post-excavation analysis. The site was located on a south-facing Devensian gravel terrace on the right bank of the River Wreake. The site comprised a 5m wide subcircular scatter of worked flint with a central cluster of burnt and calcined flint, the indications of a former hearth. Some 8000 flints were recovered by hand excavation, while a wetsieving programme produced copious microdebitage. The principal activities at the site comprised the production of bladelets, blanks for making microliths. Re-tooling of projectiles can be inferred from a cluster of impactdamaged and broken microliths and evidence for microlith manufacture in the form of numerous microburins. However, some microliths showed use-wear traces relating to other activities such as butchery.
The assemblage has the distinctive technological and typological profile of a Honey Hill assemblage type. The microliths are dominated by obliquely truncated points, backed points and points with inverse basal retouch, the latter a defining trait of such assemblages. The microliths show a near-ubiquitous feature in the form of sinistral lateralisation, ie they were nearly all retouched on their left-hand side. Bladelet production was methodical and comprised reduction from single-platform and opposed-platform cores, prepared by abrasion of the core front. Ventral stigmata on the bladelets demonstrated that the cores were reduced with a soft stone percussor. However, there was some evidence for a less skilled knapper on site, possibly a child.
The Honey Hill assemblage type appears to be a Midlands phenomenon but showing some linkage with Horsham sites of southern England, and more distant links with Middle Mesolithic sites of northern France. A radiocarbon dating programme undertaken by Alex Bayliss suggests that the principal occupation at the site occurred c 8100 cal BC, around the beginning of the Boreal pollen zone, a period when climate warming caused a rapid replacement of the pine/birch forest with a mixed deciduous woodland. Proxy environmental indicators such as oak charcoal and pig bones support the position within the Boreal. It is proposed that Honey Hill-type sites and the related Horsham sites be termed Middle Mesolithic, reflecting similar developments in north-west Europe. Interestingly the site is broadly contemporary with the site of Howick in Northumberland which has lithic technotypological characteristics of the Late Mesolithic (geometric microliths and narrow blade technology). It seems plausible that there are co-eval developments in the settlement history of England, with different Mesolithic traditions (people?) infilling the north-west peninsula of Europe just prior to the creation of the British archipelago.