Description

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

Research results

Seven fragments of antler from a Neolithic pit at Tilshead Nursery, excavated by Wiltshire Archaeology & Natural History Society Archaeological Field Group in 2009.

This group was sampled as part of 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.