Description

Summary: An assemblage of Mesolithic flint from mixed deposits at Oliver's Hill Field, Cherhill, Wiltshire, excavated by I F Smith and J G Evans, on behalf of WANHS, 1967.

Research results

1007 Mesolithic flints from Oliver's Field, inlcuding all of those from the 'working hollow' and buried soil, were re-examined by Davis (2012) as part of their PhD with the University of Worcester. The study is critical of previous, environmentally deterministic, studies of Mesolithic material culture and attempts to ask whether or not Mesolithic use of spring sites in the South West of England was a meaningful choice, rather than a convinient base for hunting expiditions. In particular, a phenomenological approach to tufa springs was adopted, noting the symbolic potential of the springs which can form a stone 'skin' on objects within seconds, or form friable, bone-like layers of stone.

An assemblage of typologically Late Mesolithic flint from mixed deposits at Oliver's Hill Field, Cherhill, Wiltshire, excavated by I F Smith and J G Evans, on behalf of WANHS, 1967. These 291 flints, separated out by the original excavators, were re-examined by Davis (2012). A layer of tufa, a calcium carbonate precipitate which forms when calcium rich water degasses, also provides a terminus ante quem for the sealed Mesolithic layers of c. 5840 cal BC.