Prehistory in Kent
by Julie C Annetts M.A.
The following gives an outline of two approaches to the study of the prehistoric period in Kent which I am at present concerned with. Firstly, I am working in association with the Royal Museum, Canterbury, to publish a catalogue of the ground and polished stone and flint Neolithic axes from Kent. The Museum has a small grant from the Area Museums Service for southeast England to help with this work. It is intended that the catalogue will include a drawing (surface, profile and section) of each complete or reworked axe. Present estimates on the basis of axes seen or noted suggest that there are about 200 complete examples although there are many more fragments. The aim of the catalogue is to bring together in one publication information of the type, form, distribution and significance of a particularly diagnostic artifact of the Neolithic period. I would be very interested to hear of any polished axes in private collections and I would be grateful for the opportunity to draw any complete examples for inclusion in the catalogue.
A typical polished flint axe found in Kent.
Secondly, I hope that readers of the Newsletter will be interested to read of four twenty-week courses which I am presenting, beginning this autumn, on the subject of Kent in Prehistory. These courses will be held at Gravesend, Maidstone, Rochester, and Sittingbourne. All four courses have been organized by the University of Kent School of Continuing Education, two in conjunction with the Workers' Educational Association. During each course, we shall be looking specifically at the evidence for prehistoric human activity in Kent from the earliest hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic period to the proto-urban populations of the later Iron Age. We shall do this by looking at sites, monuments, and artifacts as well as by discussing such topics as social organization, cohesion and conflict, economic strategies and land use, exchange networks, Continental contact, and change through time. I hope that we shall be able to include a survey of the prehistory of the local areas as an important part of each course.
The dates, places, and times of each course are as
follows:
Gravesend Tuesday 27th September 7.30 - 9.30 pm, Victoria Centre, Darley Road, Gravesend.
Sittingbourne Thursday 29th September 7.30 - 9.30 pm, Sittingbourne College, College Road, Sittingbourne.
Maidstone Monday 26th September 7.00 - 9.00 pm,
Adult Education Centre Annexe, 9, Sittingbourne
Road, Maidstone.
Rochester Wednesday 28th September 7.00 - 9.00 pm,
Medway Adult Education Centre, Eastgate, Rochester.
