Early resources - using what was at hand
Our early ancestors were inventive in using materials which lay close at hand, whether for building or making tools.
- Flints were perhaps the most prized objects. Middle to Upper Paleolithic flint tools found at Sutton Courtenay (Eeles et al 2004) are made of a high quality black flint not found in this area and perhaps were brought from as far away as Norfolk, some 150 km away.
- Tools made from animal bones
- Neolithic monuments were built of local materials eg un-worked sarsen stones where these were available (Wayland Smithy near Uffington) , otherwise of earth and wood.
- Reeds, straw used for thatch.
- Quernstones used both local Greensand and imported stone· The Romans were the first in this area to use cut stone for building
- Pottery could be made from local clay, such as the Gault Clay underlying Little Wittenham.
- Roman pottery kilns known from Berinsfield.
- Waste disposal An early Iron Age midden (2004 excavation south of Hill Farm) indicates that the Iron Age village was organised in terms of having a specific waste disposal site. The midden was some 50m across and contained domestic rubbish including quernstone fragments, loom weights, metal and bone tools, together with masses of pottery fragments and animal bones.
