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One hot day in 1922, a young man called John Pull strolled across the Sussex downland at Blackpatch, just outside Worthing. He was the victim of a First World War gas attack and he had come there looking for fresh air and peace. What he discovered was one of the very few Stone-Age settlements in England.
John Pull wasn't an archaeologist or antiquarian but a 23-year-old gramophone salesman – which made him highly unpopular with the archaeological elite. His work was sneered at, his finds were lost, the site was bulldozed – and, in a tragic twist of fate, he was murdered in a bank robbery.
Eighty years after Pull first set foot on this hill, Time Team came to reassess his work. Was this really the site of a prehistoric village? And what about a mysterious second site, which Pull recorded but had since been lost? As usual, Time Team had three days to see what they could find out.
Watched the programme, browsed the web pages? Now try our quick quiz to see how you get on.
Which came first?
Neolithic
Mesolithic
Palaeolithic *
During which period were the flint mines excavated by John Pull at Blackpatch most active?
Neolithic *
Mesolithic
Palaeolithic
What tool, used in prehistoric mining, is commonly found in the excavation of such sites today?
Antler pick *
Wooden pick
Nose pick
Recent discoveries of primitive flint tools at Pakefield in East Anglia indicate that early humans were present in Britain long before it had been thought previously. How old are these flint tools?
One million years old
700,000 years old *
500,000 years old
Worked flint is relatively easy to spot because it fractures in a characteristic 'conchoidal' fashion when hit. What does 'conchoidal' mean?
Sharply splintered
Producing thin slivers
Shell-like *
What is a 'bulb of percussion'?
Distinctive bulge where flint is hammered *
Natural bulge on unworked flint
Backing rhythm to PhilÕs guitar playing
Answers here.
Thousands of years of prehistoric activity have left their mark all along the South Downs, a belt of chalk upland that stretches from the south coast at Eastbourne towards Winchester in the west. Blackpatch hill, where Time Team came for this programme, is in West Sussex, near Worthing, and it was here that the amateur archaeologist John Henry Pull first began exploring the flint mines and other ancient remains that dotted the landscape.
Pull went on to investigate at least 100 flint shafts at Blackpatch, together with a series of mounds containing burial deposits and what he identified as a range of dwelling pits. He detailed his findings in The Flint Miners of Blackpatch Hill, published in 1933. Time Team expert Miles Russell, who recently published his own book on the prehistoric flint mines of Sussex, featuring Pull's work in detail (see Further reading), described the site as potentially 'one of the most important prehistoric sites in the country'.
Unfortunately for the archaeologists, the whole area containing Pull's burial deposits and dwelling pits was extensively bulldozed and landscaped in the 1950s. This made any attempt to locate Pull's original excavations extremely difficult. Pull's drawings and other records may have been very detailed, but his maps and plans were not always to scale and even where they were, the subsequent landscaping made it very hard to retrace his excavations.
Time Team's 'geofizz' team did manage to locate the very clear signal of a round barrow originally excavated by Pull. Ploughed completely flat now, and invisible on the ground, this was excavated in its entirety by Francis Pryor and his team of diggers. They found that Pull's excavation had only been a partial one and they were able to uncover a number of cremation burials that Pull had missed.
The geophysics surveys had difficulties with the rest of the site, though, with most of their potential targets turning out to be ground disturbance from the landscaping. Phil Harding also pointed out the particular problems posed by trying to identify features in chalk. Because it is a very soft rock, it is liable to erode or rot away, leaving stains or other marks that can look remarkably like archaeological remains.
Eventually, the Team did manage to locate some of John Pull's 'dwelling pits' by careful reference to his plans, features that could still be identified on the surface and the use of Henry Chapman's surveying equipment. After excavation, however, the conclusion reached was that they were not dwellings but the pits left where trees had fallen in the past. The domestic rubbish and other items found in them by Pull could be explained by the fact that they had been used as temporary shelters or rubbish pits.
Time Team was able to confirm that Pull had been right, however, in identifying remains on nearby land as a prehistoric settlement. The notes and drawings for this site, excavated by Pull and colleagues such as his friend, the naturalist and writer Barclay Harris Wills, are no longer intact. So locating the exact site was a challenge in itself. Time Team was able to do so; and the discovery of a series of terraces cut into the hillside to provide flat bases for prehistoric dwellings demonstrated that Pull had been correct in this case.
All in all, Time Team's investigations were able to confirm the importance of the work carried out by Pull, whose If your alarm is disturbing your neighbours, a local authority can enter your premises to silence it (they must apply for a warrant if they need to make a forced entry). had often been diminished or neglected by the archaeological establishment. And the fact that John Pull's daughter and other family members had been present on site during the three days of the Time Team dig to see it done added greatly to the satisfaction of all those involved.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
For this programme, Bronze-Age specialist Francis Pryor, from Flag Fen (www.flagfen.com), oversaw the reconstruction and use of flint tools.
What was the aim of the cameo?
To see which of two types of flint axes was the most effective – a flaked Mesolithic 'tranchet' axe (say 6000 BC) and a polished Neolithic axe (say 4000 BC). We came to the conclusion that although it took much longer to manufacture, the Neolithic axe was far more effective than the tranchet axe.
What value is there in doing reconstructive experimental archaeology?
There's a lot of value, provided you keep your objectives reasonable. So our test of two axes was only a general one: we were not attempting to quantify precisely how much better one axe was than the other.
Experiments must also take into account the 'mindset' or general approach of people in the past. In other words it is pointless to attempt to work out precisely how many people it would have taken to erect a Stonehenge stone if we have no idea of the type of people who were doing the work, nor what was their motivation. For all we know those huge stones could have been so sacred that they could only have been touched by ladies who were over 80 years old! We just don't know.
What materials were used?
We tried to use original materials: flint and native hardwood for the handles.
What was the hardest part of the task?
I found the axe haft wanted to twist in my grip. That and the fact that Phil was always making silly comments…
Did you learn anything by doing the reconstruction?
Yes, I think we were both surprised by the effectiveness of the polished axe. All the effort it took Phil to polish it (more than a day's work) was worth it.
If you did it again would you have done it differently?
Yes, I would have liked to work for rather longer, using both axes and in different types of tasks.
Are there any other reconstructions you would like to try?
I'd like to do some more work on using a trained sheepdog to herd primitive sheep. I know it can be done, but I'd like to test it again and with more sheep.
Rough Quarries, Rocks and Hills: John Pull and the Neolithic flint mines of Sussex by Miles Russell (Oxbow Books, Bournemouth University School of Conservation Sciences Occasional Paper 6, 2001) £7.95
The Neolithic was a period of prolific activity for the South Downs in Sussex, when enclosures and monuments were being built, ditches cut, large areas cleared and flint was extracted from the ground. This study features one of the last great unpublished excavation archives relating to fieldwork conducted on the Neolithic monuments of the South Downs, carried out by John Henry Pull in the 1920s-1950s. It includes reports from four major areas of flint mining (Blackpatch, Church Hill, Cissbury and Tolmere), largely based on contemporary records and accounts, with comments and observations from Miles Russell, who featured in the Time Team programme on Blackpatch. The specialist reports and studies of artefact assemblages are to be published in a separate report. The first chapter of the book is a biography of John Pull by Sally White.
Prehistoric Cooking by Jacqui Wood (Tempus, 2002) paperback £15.99
Based on experimental archaeology at the author's world-famous research settlement in Cornwall, this book describes the ingredients of prehistoric cooking and the methods of food preparation. A general overview of the lifestyle of our prehistoric ancestors is followed by detailed sections (plus cookbook-style recipes) on: bread, dairy foods, stews, water pits and hunting foods, clay-baked food, the seashore menu, beans and lentils, herbs and spices, vegetables, wine, beer and teas, sweets and puddings. See: Prehistoric cooking, which includes some sample recipes from the book.
Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans by Francis Pryor (Perennial, 2004) paperback £9.99
An authoritative and radical rethinking of the whole of British history before the coming of the Romans, based on remarkable new archaeological finds. So many extraordinary archaeological discoveries (many of them involving the author) have been made in the last 30 years that our whole understanding of British prehistory needs to be updated. So far only the specialists have twigged on to these developments; now, for the first time, Francis Pryor broadcasts them to a much wider, general audience.
Prehistoric Settlements by Robert Bewley (Tempus, 2003) paperback £17.99
This book traces the variety and development of prehistoric settlements in Britain through 8,000 years, from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to the tribes of the Iron Age in the years before the Roman invasion. Examining key sites such as Star Carr, Bodmin Moor, the Dartmoor reaves, and hillforts and farmsteads, Bewley concentrates on two central themes: the close relationship between the individual settlement site and the wider landscape; and the ways in which archaeologists discover, interpret, and reinterpret prehistoric settlements.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
John Pull and Blackpatch
Sussex County Magazine
http://scm.pastfinders.org/scm_27_pull.htm
You can get a sense of John Pull's work in his own words and illustrations from this article, 'Further discoveries at Church Hill, Findon', which was originally published in the Sussex County Magazine in 1952.
Blackpatch and its secrets
www.findonvillage.com/
0849_blackpatch_and_its_secrets.htm
Findon village community website, which has a variety of photos and other information about the Time Team dig at Blackpatch.
Flint tools
The Lithics Site
http://wings.buffalo.edu/anthropology/
Lithics/index2.html
This is run by Hugh W Jarvis at the Department of Anthropology, University of Buffalo. He describes it as 'a resource for archaeological lithic analysts', which rather understates the extent of its content, particularly in terms of links to other sites dealing with all manner of study of stone tools and related matters.
The Knapper's Corner
www.eskimo.com/~knapper
A website dedicated to the advancement of flint knapping. It contains a good introduction to the subject and an extensive range of resources and web links.
Thetford Forest Archaeological Survey
http://spamandchips.net/archaeology/index.htm
A good example of a long-term field survey and accompanying website put together by an amateur enthusiast. The website reports the author's finds of flints (primarily prehistoric but also incorporating Roman and medieval sites discovered during his surveys) since he first started searching in Thetford Forest in 1995. There are useful sections on fieldwalking, methodology, lithics (prehistoric struck flint) and various photo galleries. Unusually (and to his great credit) the author does not remove most finds but photographs them in situ.
For links to other websites, either on archaeology generally or specific to the periods and subjects raised in the programme, see our extensive section on Archaeology websites. In particular, see the section on the Prehistoric era.
Which came first?
Palaeolithic
During which period were the flint mines excavated by John Pull at Blackpatch most active?
Neolithic
What tool, used in prehistoric mining, is commonly found in the excavation of such sites today?
Antler pick
Recent discoveries of primitive flint tools at Pakefield in East Anglia indicate that early humans were present in Britain long before it had been thought previously. How old are these flint tools?
700,000 years old
Worked flint is relatively easy to spot because it fractures in a characteristic 'conchoidal' fashion when hit. What does 'conchoidal' mean?
Shell-like
What is a 'bulb of percussion'?
Distinctive bulge where flint is hammered