Cissbury

Cissbury
Cissbury
Neolithic flint mine and Iron Age hillfort
Country England
Region South East England
District Worthing
Elevation 184 m (604 ft)
Style Neolithic
Founded Around 3000 BC
Owner Managed by National Trust
Visitation Located north of Worthing off A24
Website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-global/w-localtoyou/w-south_east/w-south_east-countryside/w-south_east-places-west_sussex/w-south_east-places-west_sussex-cissbury.htm

Cissbury is the name of a prehistoric site near the village of Findon around 5 miles north of Worthing in the English county of West Sussex. The site is managed by the National Trust.

Plan of Cissbury fort showing shafts

The site was one of the first Neolithic flint mines in Britain and it was exploited throughout the period. (the nearby Harrow Hill series of flint mines is slightly older). It is part of a group of flint mines in Sussex which followed a rich seam of flint bearing chalk. Other examples include Grimes Graves in Suffolk, and Harrow Hill nearby. Cissbury was one of several important mining industries in the UK during the Neolithic and is thought to have been used into the Bronze age, and later the Iron Age though flint mining probably stopped during the late neolithic, but there is some evidence of re-use of flint for tools during later times. Examples of Cissbury flint can be found as far as Italy. Many other types of stone were in demand for stone axes such as the greenstone of the Langdale axe industry in the Lake District. The axes were essential for forest clearance for farming in the Neolithic period, and found many other uses, such as wood working.

Around 200 shafts were dug into the Cissbury hill over around 900 years of use. Shafts were up to 12 m deep with 7 m diameters at the surface. Up to eight galleries extended outwards from the bottoms of the shafts, often interconnecting with one another.

Contents

Excavation

Late Stone Age flint axe, about 31 cm long (not from Cissbury)

Excavation of the mine shafts by John Pull in the 1950s uncovered the remains of a young woman who had been apparently killed in a tunnel collapse around 2000 BC. Charcoal possibly from her torch and a miniature whale carved from chalk were with her. The possibility that the shaft was used for a ritual burial has also been suggested however. The remains of two other people, a man and a woman, were recovered from different shafts at Cissbury in the nineteenth century and it has been suggested that the exhausted mines had a secondary purpose for formal burial. Alternatively, it may have been expedient to send women into the mines as they could squeeze into the narrow galleries and some archaeologists have suggested that flint extraction was a rite of passage for the more slightly-built juvenile members of Neolithic societies.

The site is significant as it represents the switch from open cast flint extraction favoured previously by prehistoric peoples who exploited deposits of flint close to the surface, to deep shaft mining which required more effort but produced more flint of a higher quality.

Hill fort

Cissbury Ring is the name of a later Iron Age hill fort that occupied the site between 300BC and the Roman conquest, a Roman mint is thought to have also occupied the site.

See also

Bibliography

  • Russell, Miles, Rough quarries, rocks and hills : John Pull and the neolithic flint mines of Sussex. Oxford: Oxbow, (2001). (Bournemouth University School of Conservation sciences occasional series.)
  • Russell, Miles, Flint Mines in Neolithic Britain. Tempus. Stroud, (2000).
  • Russell, Miles The Early Neolithic Architecture of the South Downs. British Archaeological Report 321, (2001). Archaeopress. Oxford.
  • Russell, Miles Prehistoric Sussex. Tempus. Stroud, (2002).
  • Russell, Miles Monuments of the British Neolithic: The Roots of Architecture. Tempus. Stroud, (2002).

External links

Coordinates: 50°51′37″N 0°22′59″W / 50.86030°N 0.38302°W / 50.86030; -0.38302


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Cissbury — Abbau von Feuerstein Größte Tiefe 5,5dep1 Betriebsbeginn neolithisch Geografische Lage Koordinaten …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Cissbury Ring — is a hill fort on the South Downs, in the borough of Worthing, and about 5 kilometres (3 mi) from its town centre, in the English county of West Sussex. Plan of Cissbury fort showing shafts of flint mines Contents …   Wikipedia

  • Cissbury (electoral division) — Coordinates: 50°50′56″N 0°23′30″W / 50.84877°N 0.39156°W / 50.84877; 0.39156 …   Wikipedia

  • Worthing — Infobox Settlement name = Worthing official name = Borough of Worthing other name = native name = nickname = Sunny Worthing settlement type = Town and Borough total type = Borough motto = Ex terra copiam e mari salutem (Latin: From the land… …   Wikipedia

  • Cissa of Sussex — Cissa King of Sussex Artists impression of three Saxon ships Reign 514–567 Predecessor Ælle …   Wikipedia

  • Sussex — County of Sussex redirects here. For other uses, see Sussex County (disambiguation). This refers to the historic county in England. For other uses either see Sussex (disambiguation) or, for the administrative counties that Sussex is divided into …   Wikipedia

  • Grimes Graves — Geobox|Mine name = Grimes Graves category = Neolithic flint Mine image caption =View of the floorstone visible in the public pit at Grime s Graves symbol = Standard of the English Heritage.svg country = England county = Norfolk region = East of… …   Wikipedia

  • Langdale axe industry — The Langdale axe industry is the name given by archaeologists to the centre of a specialised stone tool manufacturing at Great Langdale in England s Lake District during the Neolithic. The area has outcrops of fine grained greenstone suitable for …   Wikipedia

  • History of Brighton — The overall history of Brighton is that of an ancient fishing village which emerged as a health resort in the 18th century and grew into one of the largest towns in England by the 20th century.EtymologyThe etymology of the name of Brighton lies… …   Wikipedia

  • Offington — Coordinates: 50°50′02″N 0°23′20″W / 50.83382°N 0.38886°W / 50.83382; 0.38886 …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”