My recent ramblings on the John Cross Rigg moorland (both physically and literally) resulted in an interesting discovery. While taking a walk over the burnt moor in search of ‘the missing Tumuli’ (see this previous post) i came across these two small pieces of worked flint just laying on the old land surface. They had probably lain there for 3000 years or more, so it was quite a thrill to find them, and to think of the person who might have dropped them so long ago. Could they have ever imagined that it would be several thousand years before they would be seen again when i stooped down to pick them up? For them these small tools were every day items, but today they have a greater significance, and can be appreciated as a link to our distant past.
The two flints were only a few metres apart, suggesting that they may have been dropped at the same time. There were no obvious archaeological features where the flints were found, although they were on a slightly raised area at the junction of two ‘Slacks’, which were probably streams running off the moor in the past.
On the same day whilst still looking for the Tumuli marked on the old OS maps i also found a flint core next to the remains of a cairn. A Flint Core is the original piece of flint from which sections have been broken off in order to make flint tools like the scraper and arrowhead, with the detached pieces being further shaped and refined by knapping.
On an earlier visit to the same burnt moorland Gavin Parry also found a barbed and tanged flint arrow head just to the north of the earthworks (see his online blog post here).
