Professor Martin Bell of Reading University gave a fascinating talk on Mesolithic archaeology in the Severn Estuary to the Henley Archaeological and Historical Group on 4th February. The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, period lasted from about 9500BC to 4000BC; people during this time survived by hunting and gathering before the arrival of farming in the Neolithic.
Sea levels in the Mesolithic were much lower than they are now and many coastal sites of this period have been submerged. Prof Bell has spent around 34 years excavating sites in the Severn Estuary. The most recent excavation he described took place at Goldcliff on the north coast of the estuary on an area of shore that is exposed only briefly during a low tide.
Finds from the site of this period are very few – mainly some animal bones and flints. Other signs of human activity were also discovered, such as a hearth, and interestingly the remains of a wooden fish trap dateable to 4900-4700BC. Perhaps the most spectacular discovery was of human footprints – mainly of children – showing the pattern of how people moved across and around the site.