The Grime's Graves Problem in the Light of Recent Researches

Abstract

The extensive prehistoric flint mining site of Grime's Graves occupïes high ground near the Southern boundary of Norfolk, at a maximum of 100 feet above O.D. It is set amidst wild undulating breck land, here and there densely clothed in bracken, the extensive belts separated by spaces of close cropped turf, or brown heath, conspicuously sprinkled with white patinated flints, a prodigious number of which are flakes of human production.Many of the hill-tops are crowned by plantations of hardwood and coniferous trees, but there is no evidence that this lonely land of wide expanses was ever more than thinly covered by native timber and one feels that the country as seen to-day is much as the ancient flint miners knew it, thousands of years ago.Though now so lonely and isolated, for neither high road nor dwelling exists within a mile radius, it was obviously once the centre of great activity, for the total mined area is not less than 34 acres in extent.Of this, 16½ acres are occupied by 366 cup-shaped hollows, varying from 12 to 70 feet in diameter, all plainly visible on the surface and each denoting an ancient mine shaft. Over the remaining 17½ acres there are no surface indications to suggest the presence of underlying shafts, but excavations during the last four years have definitely established their existence and proved the area to be closely crowded with mine shafts of small diameter.

When and Why? The Chronology and Context of Flint Mining at Grime’s Graves, Norfolk, England

“…The inter-war period saw continued excavations, mainly by A.L. (Leslie) Armstrong, published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia (eg, Armstrong 1923; 1924; 1927). Work resumed in the 1970s, when a deep shaft and its surrounding surface area were excavated by Roger Mercer (1981) for the Department of the Environment in 1971–72; and a major research project led by Ian Longworth and Gale Sieveking for the British Museum was conducted in 1972–76, its interim results being published in this journal (Sieveking et al 1973).…”

“…At the start of this scenario were ‘primitive’ pits: ‘These pits, and the tools used in sinking them are of a type not previously recorded and undoubtedly mark an early phase in the evolution of mining ... The waste material of both the chipping floors and the pits is rougher and differs in general facies from the familiar Grime’s Graves waste’ (Armstrong 1927, 101–3). It was not until the 1930s that Grahame Clark and Stuart Piggott (1933), founder members of the Prehistoric Society, reviewed the dating evidence (artefactual, faunal, and stratigraphic) from the British flint mines, concluding ‘... in our view all the evidence points to a Neolithic date for the main flint-mining activity in Britain, no earlier phase having been satisfactorily demonstrated.…”

British Museum Natural Radiocarbon Measurements IV

“…This can be regarded as satisfactory from the point of view of the basic chronology. BM-109 is clearly outside the general dating pattern, though it is possible some flint mines could have been in use in Middle and Late Bronze Age times (see references to Armstrong's "Black Hole" with pottery probably of Late Bronze Age, referred to by Armstrong [1926] as Halstatt). Charcoal from the bottom of the Neolithic ditch, cutting XA at Hembury, Honiton,Dorset,England (50° 49' 13" N Lat,3° 15' 38" E Long).…”

“…Coll (Burchel and Piggott, 1939;Sieveking, 1960 Armstrong [1926] Charcoal from the bottom of the Neolithic ditch, cutting XA at Hembury, Honiton, Dorset, England (50° 49' 13" N Lat, 3° 15' 38" E Long). Excavated in 1931 by the late Mrs. Dorothy Liddell and now in the reserve collection of the Royal Albert Mus., Exeter (Liddell, 1931 (Evans, 1953(Evans, , 1959 (Zammit, 1916(Zammit, , 1930 …”