MDE1095 - Late prehistoric flint scatter on Kentisbury Down (Monument)

SS 640 435. Flint scatter suggesting a possible Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age occupation site on Kentisbury Down. (SS 631 439). More than 600 Flints were collected from field No. 430 by the Rev. HG Ayre, Rector of Kentisbury, and his sons between 1966-68. The field was first cultivated in 1966, having previously been under permanent pasture. A few finds were made in the adjoining field to the northeast (No 431 - SS 633 440), to the northwest No 456 (SS 628 434) and to the southwest in fields No. 325 (SS 628 434) and No. 367 (SS 623 435). The finds included two leaf-shaped and one barbed-and-tanged arrowheads, broken flint knives, a wide variety of flint scrapes and a fine knife with finely polished cutting edge. All were deposited in the North Devon Athenaeum, Barnstaple. Although many of the smaller artefacts gave some impression of Mesolithic types, Dr Isobel Smith, to whom most of them were shown, is inclined to date none earlier than Neolithic and some certainly of the Beaker period or even later. [1] The frequency with which flints of the Mesolithic types, including microliths are found in the same areas as Neolithic or even Early Bronze Age flints, often similar patina is leading to a growing belief that industries of Mesolithic type may often have survived into the third and early second millennia BC [2,3] SS 620 440. Mesolithic flints including 8 cores, 12 blades or flakes, 4 scrapers, 75 microliths and 2 micro-burins found on the surface of a large field, first ploughed in 1966. In Barnstaple (North Devon Athenaeum) excavated by Rev. H G Ayre. [4,5] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [6]