Building new Neolithic connections through chalk art

This article aims to bring to life the collecting strategies of two archaeologists who both excavated at the same British Neolithic flint mine site, seventy-five years apart. The site of Cissbury, Sussex, where flint extraction took place in the Neolithic between 4000 and 3000 cal. bc, produced evidence of flint-tool production in the form of axes and flint debitage, but also human burials and marks incised both on the chalk walls of the mines and on smaller detached pieces of chalk. Due to their interpretations of the worked chalk material these archaeologists were both subject to some derision from their colleagues during their lives. Neither individual had formal or thorough archaeological training but they made efforts to understand and retain this unusual worked chalk material that, at the time, was seen as problematic. Their collections, when viewed together in the light of contemporary research, indicate both a historically situated problem of the acceptance of prehistoric art and the value of revisiting their findings. By integrating known work with new archival research, it is possible to conclude that their acknowledgement of chalk art in flint-mining contexts allows for a greater breadth of interpretation in the present and the value of curation today

Acknowledgement · Archaeology · Interpretation (philosophy · Prehistory · Rock art · Situated · Value (mathematics · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

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