Description

Summary: several hazelnut shell fragments, from Tilshead Nursery School, excavated by Wiltshire Archaeology & Natural History Society Archaeological Field Group in 2009.

Research results

An assemblage of hazel nut shells found in a neolithic pit at Tilshead Nursery, excavated by Wiltshire Archaeology & Natural History Society Archaeological Field Group in 2009.

This pit is discussed in Roberts and Marshall's (2020) project synthesising the dating evidence of Neolithic pit digging in Wiltshire, as part of which a number of new radiocarbon dates were obtained. In addition to providing new insights into the chronology of Neolithic pit digging and ceramic depositon, the study also gives further support to a theorised decline in cultivation in the mid- to late-neolithic, when grains decrease in frequency and a shift to a more pastoral way of life may have occured.