Thornborough Archaeology Group

Visitors to Thornborough Archaeology Group events in July may have noticed an exciting new addition to our displays: a remarkable collection of flint, stone, pottery and metal artefacts spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age.

The collection has been very kindly loaned to TAG by lithics expert and TAG advisor Spencer Carter and will provide an important new teaching and interpretation resource for the group.

Bringing Prehistoric Technology to Life

The collection comprises a series of display cases containing both original prehistoric artefacts and expertly crafted reproductions. Together, they help illustrate the development of stone-tool technology over thousands of years and, importantly, allow visitors to see not simply the individual pieces of worked flint, but how some of these objects would originally have been used.

Among the most striking exhibits are reconstructed prehistoric arrows incorporating different types of flint arrowhead.

These include microlith barbed arrows from the Mesolithic, leaf-shaped and transverse arrows, characteristic of the Neolithic period, and barbed-and-tanged arrowheads, associated particularly with the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

The reproduction arrowheads have been faithfully hafted into wooden shafts using materials and techniques such as tree resin and binding, demonstrating the considerable skill involved in turning a carefully worked piece of flint into an effective tool or weapon.

Seeing these objects reconstructed in this way provides a very different perspective from viewing an isolated flint artefact. It helps us understand the ingenuity, craftsmanship and practical knowledge possessed by the people who lived in this landscape thousands of years ago.

A New Teaching Resource for TAG

The collection will now form part of TAG’s teaching and interpretation resources and will be used at our public events and displays going forward.

For anyone interested in prehistoric archaeology, it provides a wonderful opportunity to see examples of technologies spanning several major periods of British prehistory and to understand how familiar archaeological finds would once have functioned as complete objects.

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to see the collection, look out for it at a future TAG event. We think you’ll be amazed by it.

The Thornborough Archaeology Group is deeply grateful to Spencer Carter for entrusting this collection to us and for his continuing generosity, expertise and support for everything TAG does.