Grime's Graves

Deer antler pick

The miners used picks fashioned from the antler of red deer. They probably used wooden shovels, although this is only inferred by analogy with other flint mines with better conditions for the preservation of artefacts. Analysis of the antlers (Clutton-Brock 1984: 25) has shown that the miners were mainly right-handed and favoured the left antlers out of those that were naturally shed seasonally by the deer. The 28 pits excavated up to 2008 yielded an average of 142.5 antler picks each, of which an average of 14.8 have been found to be left-handed.

Once they had reached the floorstone flint, the miners dug lateral galleries outwards from the bottom, following the flint seam. The medium-depth shafts yielded as much as 60 tons of flint nodules, which were brought to the surface and roughly worked into shape on site. The blank tools were then possibly traded elsewhere for final polishing. It is estimated that 60 tons of flint could have produced as many as 10,000 of the polished stone axes, which were the mines' main product. Extrapolation across the site suggests that Grime's Graves may have produced around 16–18,000 tonnes of flint across the 433 shafts recorded to date. However, there are large areas of the site covered by later activity which are believed to conceal many more mineshafts.

There were other hard stones used for axe manufacture, those of the Langdale axe industry and Penmaenmawr in North Wales being traded across Europe, as well as other less well-known igneous and metamorphic rocks. The axes were much in demand for forest clearance and settlement, development of farmland for arable crops and raising animals, which characterises the Neolithic period.

Neolithic flint axe, measuring about 31 cm × 8 cm (12.2 in × 3.1 in)

One unproductive shaft (pit 15) appears to have been turned into a shrine. An altar of flint lumps had been built with a chalk bowl at its base and antler picks piled around. In front of the altar had been placed a Venus figurine of chalk, a chalk phallus and some balls, also of chalk. It may have been an attempt to ensure that the mine remained productive or 'fertile' after this particular shaft turned out to have little flint in it. However, it is possible that the Venus figurine and the phallus are modern fakes – there is a lack of primary evidence surrounding their recovery in 1939, and rumours circulated at the time of the excavation that they were planted in order to deceive Leslie Armstrong, the archaeologist overseeing the dig.[6]

The remains of mineshafts, pits, and spoil heaps pockmark the surface of Grime's Graves

Such a large industry may have required supporting infrastructure. Assuming no more than two shafts were open at any one time, around 120 red deer may have needed to be bred and managed nearby, in order to provide a steady supply of antler as well as skin, food and other products that the miners would require. Alternatively, the mines may have been worked intermittently by local farmers, as happened in many early metal mines during the Bronze Age and the later Iron Age.

Earlier flint mines in Britain such as Cissbury in Sussex were just as important as Grime's Graves, and there were many very local sources of flint which were exploited on the downlands. However, it is probably relevant that Grime's Graves were close to the very rich soils of the Fens, and forest clearance here would rely on local products.

There was also extensive farming settlement during the Bronze Age, known from middens that infill the mouths of many Neolithic mineshafts. Animal bones from these middens show that the Bronze Age people kept cattle, which they milked, sheep and a few pigs. They also grew barley, wheat and peas.

Grime's Graves is in the care of English Heritage. It is open to the public and it is possible to descend a 9 m (30 ft) ladder and explore one of the shafts. There is a small exhibition area.[8] This is the only shaft of its kind open to the public in Britain.

The full English Heritage reports on the excavations at Grime's Graves in 1971–72[9][10] are now available online through the Archaeology Data Service. Doctor Philip Harding FSA, later to appear in the TV programme Time Team, dug the site each summer from 1972 to 1976.