Important Mesolithic site uncovered at Tottenham Hale

You see a big hole dug in the ground. I see the Mesolithic layer of Tottenham uncovered. 

This week, the archaeologists from Pre-Construct at the site of the old Welbourne Centre, near Tottenham Hale, held an open day to showcase some of the finds they have made.  I went along because, well, wild horses couldn't have kept me away. There was an excellent turnout and lots to learn ( Confession: I am grateful to Wetlands Steve on Twitter and the Friends of Bruce Castle Facebook page for filling in online some details that I was too excited to note down at the time).

About four weeks ago, they started to find flints on the dig. It soon became clear that they were beginning to uncover a major campsite from the Mesolithic, and not just a place where a band of hunters may have stopped for a night or two, as over 600 flints were turned up. The flints were made about 10,000 - 8,000 years B.C.E. and ranged from large axe heads and scraping tools to the tips of fishing spears.

Flint doesn't occur naturally around Tottenham and must have been brought to the site, possibly down the Lea, which wouldn't have happened if the site were not considered an important one by its Mesolithic visitors. The site could have been in use for hundreds or even thousands of years as it was an attractive place for settlement, standing alongside a small stream that formed part of the Lea Valley system on higher, drier ground above the wetlands. It's likely that large groups of nomadic hunter- gatherers would have made use of the site including women, children, and older members of the group. 

This is an enormously exciting and regionally important discovery for Haringey and the Lea Valley.

There were also some late Saxon pottery shards and animal bones found as they dug ditches on the site which was also significant because although Tottenham's Saxon roots were inferred from its name, this is the first time that any evidence of occupation in this time period has been turned up. Interestingly, there's been nothing (so far) discovered that originates from between the Mesolithic and the late Saxon period which is intriguing in itself (what no Romans, for example?)

It’s quite a dizzying thought that the axe head in the photo below was held in the hand of a human over 11,000 years ago and yesterday it was held in mine.