The Excavation of Three ‘Narrow Blade’ Mesolithic Sites in the Southern Pennines, England

Abstract

Editor's note: Throughout the 1960's Jeffrey Radley was engaged in research on the Mesolithic sites of the southern Pennine area. A report on his excavations at Deepcar was published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society for 1964 (Radley and Mellars 1964) and accounts of further fieldwork undertaken in collaboration with F. Hepworth and G. Marshall appeared in various issues of theYorkshire Archaeological Journaland theDerbyshire Archaeological Journal(Radley and Marshall 1963, 1965; Radley 1967, 1968). Shortly before his death in 1970 he was preparing a general article summarizing the present state of knowledge concerning the ‘Narrow Blade’ microlithic industries of the Pennines, and incorporating reports on the excavation of three previously unrecorded sites which fall clearly into this Narrow Blade group. One of the chief aims of this article was to draw attention to the typological diversity which can be observed within the later Mesolithic industries of northern Britain, and to contrast these assemblages with the ‘Broad Blade’ industries as represented at the sites of Deepcar and elsewhere.