Find Spot record MDO2088 - Neolithic axe found at a barrow near the Hardy Monument, Portesham

A Neolithic stone axe (see illus) was found in 1956 by P Porter (in the vicinity of the barrow at SY 61288750) "on the surface of a ploughed field on Black Down just within the parish boundary of Portesham to the north west of an unploughed barrow." (The NGR SY 604789 is given but this is evidently erroneous). It is now in Dorset County Museum.

The published note describes this find and the circumstances of the find as follows: 'Mr. P. Porter of the department of Forestry at Oxford, while examining the local flora in connection with pollen samples taken from a barrow near the Hardy Monument (Proc., Vol. 77, pp. 134-5), found the axe illustrated (Fig.2) on the surface of a ploughed field on Black Down just within the parish boundary of Portesham to the north-west of an unploughed barrow (SY 604789).
The axe, which is 4 ins. long, 2.2 ins. broad and .75 in. thick, was submitted to Dr. F. S. Wallis at Bristol, who kindly sliced it for the Stone Axe Sub-Committee of the S.W. Group of Museums and Art Galleries. He has given it the number 979, and his examination was reported in the following terms:-
Macro : A greyish and brownish fine grained rock.
Micro : A very fine grain silicified rock with scattered quartz, mica plates and laths all set in a turbid silicified matrix. A silicified sedimentary rock.
Dr. Wallis remarks that it is a 'generalised type…it is not possible to suggest a locality' for its origin. Dr. J. F. S. Stone says that 'it is a rock we have not come across before in our axe work'. This axe deserves to be recorded as possibly others like it will be found here or in neighbouring areas. It has been placed in the Dorchester Museum.' <1>

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1957, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1956, 83-84 (Serial). SDO56.

<2> National Record of the Historic Environment, 452571 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 22 2023 11:17AM