Record Details

NHER Number:13024
Type of record:Find Spot
Name:Palaeolithic 'bout coupe' flint handaxe and Neolithic flint knife

Summary

A Middle Palaeolithic 'bout coupe' flint handaxe and a Neolithic flint knife were found on the surface in about 1976. Although these finds are initially recorded as coming from this location, there is some evidence that they may have been found a little way to the north, in Castle Rising parish.

Images - none

Location

Grid Reference:TF 652 249
Map Sheet:TF62SE
Parish:NORTH WOOTTON, WEST NORFOLK, NORFOLK

Full description

In about 1976. Stray Find.
Found by [1] in unknown circumstances:
1 Middle Palaeolithic flint handaxe.
This discovery was reported in (S1), which records the findspot as being at TF 6397 2490. It should however be noted that an undated letter from [2] to A. Lawson (NAU) (discovered by J. Wymer (NAU) in 1988) states that the handaxe was found "beyond the trees" at TF 653 252 (in Castle Rising parish). This grid reference would indeed place the find beyond Wootton Carr, suggesting that the grid reference given by (S1) should be treated as very approximate. Information from (S2).

As noted in (S3) this is a bout coupé handaxe, a form usually dated to the early Devensian glacial stage and associated with Late Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian-type industries. See photographs (S4) in file and tracing (S5) (drawn from the photographs). It is clear from the photographs that this object is in extremely good condition.
This find is also noted on (S6) and in (S7), although in the latter although its provenance is wrongly given as South Wootton Common (the result of a misreading of the grid reference given in (S3)). This confusion is probably the reason a duplicate record that was wrongly created at this location (NHER 28093, now revoked). The handaxe is also noted (with its correct provenance) in (S8) and (S9), although no additional information is given. It is also listed as a potentially Middle Palaeolithic implement in (S10) and (S11).

A Neolithic flint knife was also found in this location; see (S4) and (S5). The plan supplied by the finder also has 'flint core and scrapers found' written to southwest of the Carr, but no grid reference is given.
E. Rose (NAU), 28 November 1988. Information from (S2).

Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 9 December 2013.

Monument Types

  • FINDSPOT (Middle Palaeolithic - 150000 BC to 40001 BC)
  • FINDSPOT (Neolithic - 4000 BC to 2351 BC)

Associated Finds

  • HANDAXE (Middle Palaeolithic - 150000 BC to 40001 BC)
  • KNIFE (Neolithic - 4000 BC to 2351 BC)

Protected Status - none

Sources and further reading

---Secondary File: Secondary File.
<S1>Serial: 1976. Council for British Archaeology Group 7 Bulletin of Archaeological Discoveries for 1976. No 23. p 23.
<S2>Record Card: NAU Staff. 1974-1988. Norfolk Archaeological Index Primary Record Card.
<S3>Article in Monograph: Lawson, A.. 1978. A Hand-Axe from Little Cressingham. East Anglian Archaeology. No 8 pp 1-8. p 5.
<S4>Photograph: Unknown. Photographs of a Middle Palaeolithic flint handaxe and Neolithic flint knife from North Wootton. Black and white. print.
<S5>Illustration: Smallwood, J. 1988. Drawings of a Middle Palaeolithic flint handaxe and a Neolithic flint knife from North Wootton. Film. none.
<S6>Record Card: Wymer, J. J. Wymer Index Card - Palaeolithic. North Wootton.
<S7>Publication: Wymer, J. J. 1985. Palaeolithic Sites of East Anglia. p 15.
<S8>Unpublished Contractor Report: 1996. The English Rivers Palaeolithic Project. Regions 9 (Great Ouse) and 12 (Yorkshire and the Lincolnshire Wolds). Wessex Archaeology. p 121.
<S9>Website: TERPS online database. Site 23083.
<S10>Monograph: Tyldesley, J. A. 1987. The bout coupé Handaxe: a typological problem. British Archaeological Report. No 170. pp 37-38.
<S11>Publication: Pettitt, P. and White, M. 2012. The British Palaeolithic: Human Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World. p 328.

Related records - none

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