– and prehistoric Colchester?

The Royal Mail issued a new set of stamps yesterday (17th January), featuring eight of the most important prehistoric sites, monuments and finds of ‘Ancient Britain’. The First Day Covers  also include some information. The subjects are: the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Orkney; the stone circles at Avebury in Wiltshire; the flint mine called ‘Grime’s Graves’ at Thetford in Norfolk; the ‘Battersea shield’ found in the River Thames at Battersea in London; ‘Maiden Castle’ hillfort in Dorset; the gold cape from North Wales; an antler headdress from Star Carr; and bronze musical horns from Northern Ireland. The Royal Mail say: ‘… The Special Stamps feature iconic sites such as Skara Brae and Avebury and exceptional artefacts including the Battersea shield and the Star Carr headdress. The stamps are all enhanced with illustrations that reveal how our ancient forebears lived and worked …’ (at www.royalmail.com/ancientbritainstamps?PSID=Google_PPC&cid=SC0117_QS4_SM_04&gclid=CI3zv6HyzNECFURAGwod6OcLUQ ).

The prehistoric period is divided into three ‘ages’, ie the Stone Age (about 3.4 million years long), the Bronze Age (2,500 BC to 800 BC) and the Iron Age (800 BC to AD 43 in Britain). These are subdivided: for example, the Early Stone Age or Palaeolithic period was followed by the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic period (8,000 BC to 4,500 BC), and then the Late Stone Age or Neolithic period (4,000 BC to 2,500 BC). The prehistoric period in Britain was terminated in AD 43 when the Roman empire invaded southern Britain. See the Bitesize ‘What was prehistoric Britain like?’ at www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zpny34j !

Colchester is famous for its Roman remains and it also has important Iron Age (‘prehistoric’) remains and sites. The remains of the Iron Age defensive dyke system of Camulodunum (the Iron Age precursor of Colchester) are of national importance, as is the Late Iron Age Lexden tumulus, which contained a royal burial. One of the Trust’s most interesting earlier prehistoric finds is the flint dagger which was found during our watching brief at Grey Friars Boutique Hotel n Colchester – and we posted an item about this in the blog on the 21st January 2013. We wrote that the dagger was very well made, and distinctive, but difficult to date: we now think that it is probably Early Bronze Age (2,000-1,500 BC). It is a very unusual find for Colchester town centre. Pitchbury Ramparts, the site of an Iron Age hillfort, is near Colchester. In 2003, we excavated the site of a Bronze Age cremation cemetery at Birch Pit quarry near Colchester and dated it to 1,400-1,200 BC. In 2014, we excavated a Bronze Age ring-ditch at Moverons Quarry at Brightlingsea which is associated with a nearby Middle Bronze Age cremation cemetery (1,500-1,200 BC, up to 3,500 years ago). However, flint tools have been found at Clacton in Essex, not far from Colchester, which make the evidence of prehistoric activity at Colchester look comparatively recent…

The flint tools from Clacton define the ‘Clactonian’ flint industry, and represent a Lower Palaeolithic culture which is dated to the Great Interglacial period within the Pleistocene, ie about 300,000-200,000 years ago. In terms of geology, ‘… Clacton is one of the principal prehistoric sites in Europe and a site of considerable international importance. However, there are no current exposures as the geology now lies beneath the grass, ornamental gardens and beach shingle. The site was discovered … in [the] 1830s, when the cliffs were still eroding. A channel deposit of the Thames-Medway River about 400,000 years old was then exposed in cliffs yielding bones of lion, rhinoceros and elephant. It is the type site of the famous “Clactonian” flint industry which is based on flint flakes and cores rather than hand-axes. It is also the site of the discovery of the tip of a yew spear, one of the oldest wooden artefacts in the world…’ (from the GeoEssex web-site, at www.geoessex.org.uk/tendring.html ). Interestingly, the Clacton spear has recently been featured on Twitter!

The Trust regularly undertakes archaeological projects in and around Clacton and all over the Tendring Peninsula.

Read more about the stamps and view all eight designs in ‘Royal Mail stamp set marks UK’s prehistoric treasures’ (posted 17.01.17) at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38639297 . You can view an image of the Clacton spear on the Natural History Museum at http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=001066 , where it is described as being 450,000 years old and the oldest wooden spear found in Britain.

The images show a simplified plan of the dyke system at Colchester and the fragments of an Iron Age hand-mirror from a cremation burial at Lexden, made of copper-alloy (both from the Trust’s popular book City of Victory: the story of Colchester, Britain’s first Roman town). The mirror shows a similar design to that on the ‘Battersea shield’.
We have numbered the dykes 1-12 to give their modern names:
1 Gryme’s Dyke; 2 Triple Dyke; 3 Lexden Dyke/Moat Dyke; 4 Sheepen Dyke; 5 Heath Farm Dyke; 6 Kidman’s Dyke; 7 Berechurch Dyke/Barnhall Dyke; 8 Oliver’s Dyke/Layer Dyke; 9 Gosbecks Dyke; 10 Lexden Dyke; 11 Prettygate Dyke; and 12  Abberton Dyke.

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