Archaeology 10,000 Years Old is Discovered in Quarry

It’s amazing what interesting archaeological artefacts can be discovered at quarries before the mineral is extracted from the ground!

Archaeologists carrying out investigations for CEMEX UK, a big mineral extraction company, have unearthed several ancient artefacts dating back 10,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age at a quarry in Horton, Berkshire.

The finds include flint tools, arrowheads, a tool to work bronze and leather, broken pottery and early traces of the first Horton farmers.

The oldest remains are the 10,000 year-old flint tools which were used to gather food growing in the wild, such as nuts and fruits, as well as to hunt animals.  Rubbish pits containing broken pottery dating from 6,000 years later, provide clues to the lives of the first farmers at Horton.

A particularly unusual find was a collection of eight flint arrowheads dating to 2,000 BC buried in a pit with flint tools and a bronze and leather working tool, which showed that Horton’s ancient inhabitants used stone and metal tools together.

There are signs that by 1500 BC, in the middle of the Bronze Age, the land was used mainly for pasture in a huge system of fields.  A large, elegant bronze pin, also dating from this period, was found in a ditch and is thought to have been used to pin the cloak of a farmer.