Further Excavations at a Mesolithic Site at Oakhanger, Selborne, Hants

Abstract

The author has already published a full account of the investigation of a mesolithic chipping-floor (Warren V) on the Lower Greensand of East Hampshire in the parish of Oakhanger, near Selborne (fig. 1). The present report is concerned with another (Warren VII), discovered early in 1957 only a few yards to the north-west (fig. 2) and excavated later that year and in 1958.The interest of the new site is partly that it supplements and enlarges certain details of the material equipment recovered from Site V, but mainly in the evidence it has provided on chronology through the application of pollen-analysis and radio-carbon analysis.To begin with excavation was carried out in transects 3 feet by 1 foot, but when it became apparent that artifacts were occurring at three levels (fig. 3) the size of the transect was increased to 3 feet by 3 feet. The earliest level (Phase I) occurred at a depth of c. 24 inches; Phase II, which corresponded with the lined surface noted by Dr Dimbleby in his pollen enquiry (see p. 256) at c. 8 to 10 inches; and Phase III in the top 3 inches of humus.