Description

Summary: One box of burnt flint & burnt stone from Charlie Crossing (SPTA), excavated by Wessex Archaeology in 2001.

Research results

The burnt flint and stone recovered during Wessex Archaeology's evaluation ahead of proposed tree planting at 'C' crossing in the Salisbury Plain Training area in 2001. The evaluation identified numerous tree throws, as well as pits containing Neolithic and Iron Age material. Carbonised hazel nut shells and grain, as well as red deer antler, from these pits has been sampled for radiocarbon dating, providing dates of 4308 +/- 30 BP, 4702 (+/- 48) BP and 4260 (+/-30) BP, all in the Neolithic.

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.