Cumbrian polished stone axes and waterlogged wooden finds from excavations at Stainton West on the Carlisle Northern Development Route in
2008 will be among important artefacts from across Europe featuring in a major new Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum in London.
The World of Stonehenge exhibition focuses on trade and exchange links across the British Isles and Europe during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age 6,000-4,000 years ago.
Among 35 UK contributors, including Oxford Archaeology North and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle, objects on display have been lent from the Republic of Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland.
Oxford Archaeology North excavations at Stainton West ahead of the construction of the Carlisle Northern Development Route revealed a wetland-edge site on floodplain islands on the banks of the River Eden.
The excavations for Birse Civils Ltd, Cumbria County Council and Connect Roads identified significant evidence for later Mesolithic and Neolithic occupation between around 6,000 and 3,000 BC.
The period is an important one in Prehistory as is spans the transition between hunting and gathering and the more settled lifestyles associated with domesticated plants and animals.
Scientific analysis of the finds and ecological data from the excavations have allowed reconstruction of an ancient wooded landscape at the edge of the low-lying Solway Estuary which was altered by the melting of glacial meltwaters and associated sea level rises.
This caused inundation of a back-channel of the river which had preserved organic remains including rare timber artefacts deposited at the water’s edge. Neolithic pottery, flint arrowheads and four stone axes had been placed in association with a large (40m x 20m) wooden platform.
Among the timbers were a pair of three-pronged wooden ‘tridents’, over 2m long, carved from green oak planks and radiocarbon-dated to about 3,650 BC.
On show at the World of Stonehenge exhibition, the original use of the enigmatic tridents is unknown, the only other known examples having been found in Ireland
and at Ehenside Tarn, between Egremont and Seascale.
Here, drainage of the tarn in 1869 revealed a similar range of finds to that at CNDR: waterlogged tridents, stone axes, pottery and stone tools.
The Stainton West waterlogged timber platform became part of a beaver dam- showing the symbiotic relationship between humans and the furry dam-builders.
Painting an atmospheric picture of the landscape at the time, a beaver-chewed log and an oak trunk marked with a bear’s claw mark are also included in the exhibition.
Fraser Brown, regional manager at Oxford Archaeology North said “Stainton West is an amazing site that has completely changed the way we understand the late Mesolithic period in the region.
“The 300,000 pieces of worked stone retrieved, provide evidence for a well-organised huntergatherer camp, on the banks of the Eden.
“This was revisited by relatively large congregations of people, over many generations. The variety of stone types present shows that this community was connected to other groups spread over the north of England and Scotland.”
Elsa Price, curator of human history at Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, said: “This is an immensely proud moment, not just for Tullie House but for Cumbria in general, to know that items from our really important pre-history collection are being celebrated in the British Museum alongside other world-famous archaeological sites.
“These items demonstrate that people were engaging with Cumbria as early as the Mesolithic period and from then on it has been an important site of migration attracting people from Scotland and Yorkshire to meet and make these important tools.”
