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Excavations at a Mesolithic Site at Downton, near Salisbury, Wiltshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Eric Higgs
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge

Extract

The investigations described in the present report owe a main part of their interest to the fact that they help to fill a gap in the prehistory of Wessex, a region which though ranking as the richest in Britain for traces of the later prehistoric cultures based on farming, has hitherto been markedly deficient in evidence for mesolithic settlement. Their other claim to interest is the addition they have made to our very scanty evidence for artificial shelters associated with mesolithic communities in Britain.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1959

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References

page 212 note 1 Vide Clark, J. G. D., Mesolithic Age in Britain, 1932, p. 27Google Scholar.

page 214 note 1 Memoirs of the Geological Survey, 1902, Reid, C., Geology of the Country round Ringwood.

page 228 note 1 According to Mr Ian Longworth (Peterhouse) these include:

(1) Seven sherds less than I inch square of soft flaky ware brown on both faces, with a slightly darker core sometimes grey. Very light tempering with fine flint grit, and some cord.

(2) Four sherds of coarse laminated ware, brown to reddish brown externally and dark brown to black internally, heavily tempered with flint grit; one fragment has parallel, diagonal lines channelled by a blunt instrument. This is typical of the Mortlake phase of Peterborough ware, but the channelled decoration suggests a Rinyo Clacton influence.

(3) Early Bronze Age sherds, reddish brown externally and black internally, decorated by a series of short vertical incised strokes.

page 228 note 2 Clark, J. G. D. and Rankine, W. F., PPS, 1939Google Scholar.

page 228 note 3 Summers, P. G., PPS, 1941Google Scholar.

page 228 note 4 Calkin, J. B., Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll., 1924Google Scholar.

page 229 note 1 Rankine, J. F., PPS, 1959, p. 313Google Scholar.

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page 231 note 5 Schwabedissen, H., Die Federmesser-Gruppen des Nordwest-europäischen Flachlandes.

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page 231 note 7 Vide Clark, , Mesolithic Age in Britain, 1924, p. 23Google Scholar.