Broxbourne ‘Finds’ at the British Museum

Abstract

A SERIES of small temporary exhibitions of special prehistoric material is contemplated by the British Museum, to fill a table-case near the top of the main staircase. Following Mr. J. P. T. Burchells exhibit of the flint sequence from Swanscombe and Northfleet in Kent is a small collection of flints from Broxbourne, Herts, all from a sealed deposit on the Pleistocene gravel. The discovery was made by Mr. Hazzledine Warren, who is about to publish it in collaboration with Mr. Grahame Clark. The material is sharp and barely patinated, consisting of cores and end-scrapers, large and pygmy gravers, raw material in the form of blades, and two picks, the predecessors of the neolithic axe. The occupation site was covered by peat of the Boreal period, as determined by pollen analysis, and the industry may safely be referred to that cool and dry period of pine and hazel forest which followed the arctic spell at the close of the Palaeolithic. This Boreal period corresponds to the Ancylus stage of the Scandinavian Stone Age, and may be dated about 6000 B.C. This exhibition will continue through July and August, and will be followed by others dealing mainly with the Stone Age of Britain.