EARLY MAN
On the Lickey Hills, at Tutnall near Tardebigge, on the east side of the range on the highlands overlooking the Avon and Severn, considerable numbers of flint implements have from time to time been found, mostly on some fields there known as 'Nine Lands,' 'Orgates,' 'Long Close' and 'Lone Fields,' A collection of these implements was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in March, 1897. It consisted of 'a rough axehead, a bored water-worn pebble, two spindle wheels, part of a whetstone, a rubber, a sling-stone, a fragment of a broken axehead with partly bored hole for its reverse, and a number of flake-borers, scrapers and arrowheads, all of flint.'[1] On the opposite side of the Severn estuary, on the Malvern Hills, but the precise spots are not known, a number of flakes have been found. These are now in the Victoria Museum at Worcester, In the south, on Bredon Hill, flint flakes have also occurred from time to time, but here again unfortunately the precise localities are unknown. These flakes also are in the Worcester Museum.
The highlands, overlooking the rich pastures of the plains, are the places where most probably the Neolithic men settled. Had the finds been only at one of the places they would not have possessed any great importance, but occurring as they do all round the estuary they strongly support the view that the south part of the county was settled by Neolithic men. Taken separately the implements prove little or nothing; indeed it may be doubted whether some of them do not belong to a later period, which might prove that the same localities were occupied by successive races. But taken in conjunction with all the places where they have been found, and the fact that in the low ground below other Neolithic implements have been discovered, they go far to establish even if they do not prove the presence of Neolithic man in Worcestershire. In the Avon valley a stone axe was unearthed, and other Neolithic implements have been found on Bevington Waste, on the borders of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, and lower down the Avon valley at Offenham, Sedgeberrow and Defford. In the Severn valley a basalt double-edged celt was found in the drift near Bewdley, and in the Teme valley stone implements have been found at Lindridge and at Broadwas.
The cumulative testimony of these finds therefore tends to prove that on the highlands there were settlements, that the lowlands were traversed by the settlers, who one and all, whether on the highlands or in the valleys, used stone implements. These stone implements are recognized as belonging to the Neolithic period. Therefore it seems to be established that Worcestershire during the whole or some part of the Neolithic period was a district inhabited by Neolithic men.
This is all that can be said with any certainty. To what extent the county was populated, for what period, whether permanently or only temporarily, as the tribes wandered from district to district, on these points there is no evidence. It is quite possible that further research may
- ↑ Proceedings Society of Antiquaries, xvi. 319.
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