Mesolithic flint artefacts
from Blacklow Hill. |  |
Human groups returned to our area around 10,500 years ago at the beginning of the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic period. As the climate became warmer and the ice sheets retreated, the habitat changed as the forest was re-established.
These people were hunter-gatherers who used bows and arrows and had domesticated dogs to help them in the chase. Vegetable foods such as nuts, roots and berries would also have formed an important part of their diet.
This period is characterised by the use of microliths, small delicately worked points set into arrowshafts. Other flint tools were used for working wood and bone and for cleaning skins. Some 20 sites are known in Warwickshire of which the most important is Blacklow Hill, near Warwick.
Excavations here have revealed a substantial tool-making site. Other sites are known in the Avon valley, although these are poorly understood. By contrast, intensive fieldwork around Nuneaton has produced a large number of finds and evidence of several settlement sites.
Stone Age Links: Creswell Crags site |