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Orleigh Court Flint and the North Devon Palaeolithic -John Newberry and Nan Pearce (Newsletter No 9 2005)
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Orleigh Court, Buckland Brewer stands out as the only inland source of flint in North Devon. The use of flint from this source in the later prehistoric periods is demonstrated, but was it exploited during the hundreds of thousands of years of the Palaeolithic? Were in fact humans of the Old Stone Age ever more than a passing presence in North Devon?
Orleigh Court is the most westerly source known today
in southern England where complete and unabraded flint nodules are found.
The absence of other flint deposits in inland North Devon and in Cornwall
makes it of unique importance for a large area of the South-West. Knapping
tests confirm that some flint there is of excellent tool-making quality,
while artefacts found at Orleigh Court show the source was used by both
Mesolithic and Neolithic knappers. There is at present no scientific method
for
determining flint sources, which means that flint artefacts can only be
linked with a source through the visual appearance of the material. Because
flint absorbs colour from its surroundings, this has its limitations.
However, flint which is visually similar to that from Orleigh Court was
used by Mesolithic and Neolithic knappers at a number of sites and to
these, thanks to work by NDAS member Susan Huxtable-Selly, we have now
been able to add the Chittlehampton area.
Mr D.Roe, who lives near Chittlehampton, was digging in his garden which borders a stream when he dug up the oldest artefact yet found in North Devon: a Lower Palaeolithic handaxe. As with other Devon flint, the nodule used was not a homogeneous material, and the knapper had overcome several potential material problems. The result is a well made biface of ovate form, similar to others found in both Lower and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages. The source of the flint used is uncertain, because it includes a range of colours and textures and has no distinctive visual characteristics. However, Orleigh Court is the nearest source of flint and the surface colours of the axe are well within the range found here. Orleigh Court is distinctly possible as a source. Among the material found at Orleigh Court is a fine-grained, lustrous flint which could be described as ‘honey-coloured’ and is considered to be of ‘superior’ tool-making quality. A finely made triangular arrowhead of visually similar material was found during work on the Taw-Torridge pipeline, and the excellence of the pressure-flaking illustrates the quality of the material. The use of ‘honey’ flint is reported in Early Mesolithic Cornwall and for some Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic artefacts at Goat’s Hole, Paviland on the Gower Peninsula.
However, even if a comparison project showed that these Cornish and Welsh finds as well as certain finds from Devon were visually similar to flint from Orleigh Court, this would not conclusively prove an association, because there may have been visually similar flint at other contemporary sources which are now lost to periglacial effects or rising sea-levels. The evidence from limestone caves to the north, south and east suggests that North Devon could have been at the centre of an area of Palaeolithic activity. With water periodically locked up in ice, sea-levels were often much lower than today and the Bristol Channel was a broad plain so that there was no physical barrier to the movement of hunter-gatherers between South Wales and North Devon. The Orleigh Court flint source would have been available to people from a wide area. There is however no certainty that they actually used it. A few of the finds from the Taw-Torridge Pipeline Project would fit comfortably into Palaeolithic assemblages, but, because the technology continued in use into more recent periods, they do not conclusively prove a Palaeolithic presence in this area. At present the Chittlehampton handaxe is the only known certain Palaeolithic artefact from North Devon.
The uncertainty could be resolved by more work at the Orleigh Court source. What is needed are finds of tools and debitage (flint waste) which could be related solely to the Palaeolithic period. If flint from this source was used for Palaeolithic handaxes, nodules would almost certainly have been tested on site for suitability. The evidence would thus include broken handaxes, rejects and flakes. Unless and until such work can be undertaken, uncertainty as to the Palaeolithic use of Orleigh Court flint will continue. However, the Chittlehampton axe both confirms a Palaeolithic presence in North Devon on at least one occasion and raises the possibility of Orleigh Court as the flint source. It therefore seems likely that further work at Orleigh Court would clarify matters.
Chronology of the British Palaeolithic - Neolithic (Mostly
very approximate)
Lower Palaeolithic: 700,000 BP to 250,000 BP
Middle Palaeolithic: 250,000 BP to 30,000 BP
Early Upper Palaeolithic: 30,000 BP to 20,000 BP
(Late Glacial Maximum 20,000 to 18,000 BP)
Middle Upper Palaeolithic: 18,000 BP to 12,000 BP
Late Upper Palaeolithic: 12,000 BP to 9,000 BP
Mesolithic: 9,000 BP to 6,500 BP
Neolithic: 6,500 BP to 4,500 BP
BP = Before Present where ‘Present’ is conventionally 1950.