After
the Ice Age, the glaciers finally retreated, somewhere between
10,000
and 8,000 BC, and the waters of the Atlantic spilled over into the
North Sea as the ice-sheet melted. The edges of the East Anglian
coast, which were once exposed marshy land, were subjected to the
encroaching waters. As the drier climates gave way to wetter
conditions, the sea flooded the lakes and marshes and the
ever-narrowing bridge of land which linked us to the continent was
broken, and we became an island.
With
this warmer phase, the tundra, an expanse of frozen sub-soil, gave
way to birch and the willow scrub, and which was eventually followed
by true forest with pines and oaks. In the open grass lands the
bison, mammoth and hippopotamus lived, and as the reindeer herds
gradually moved north, the woods were once more inhabited by red
deer, pigs and auroch.
The
Mesolithic humans liked well-drained sandy soils, where the woodland
was not too dense, and signs of their presence have been found in
Suffolk. In such places they built flimsy shelters with wooden frames
covered with branches, turf or animal skins. Alternately they moved
seasonally to the river valleys beside streams and marshes such as at
Halesworth, where they could live off the abundant small animals,
birds and fish they found there. They could fish more easily in the
open rivers, and moved about searching for
game in the heath and scrubland among the birch and hazel trees.
These
people were still nomadic, living in small family groups. They
developed a new Mesolithic technology which included the use of
hafted axes in addition to the earlier hand axe, and made composite
tools and weapons for hunting and fishing.
In
Halesworth itself, excavations were undertaken in the late 1980's by
Mike Fordham and others of the Halesworth Museum as the new relief
road was being built. Their finds indicated Mesolithic and Neolithic
sites were in use where the old Angel Bowling Green had formerly
stood - currently the public car-park behind the Angel Hotel -
(IP19 8AH) - and this would have been a habitable area close to the
river and a dwelling place from which the people of those times were
able to fish, or use as a base as they went into the forests nearby
to hunt for food. It is probable that not only was the river-bed
some 2.15m lower than at present, but evidence indicates that the
Blyth River at one time was almost 185m wide and flowing swiftly.
The
toolmakers were becoming more expert in their craft and using good
quality flint to make a variety of tools which, among other
types, utilised their characteristic microlith or micro-blades. These could
be fixed with bitumen or resin into tools of wood or bone to produce
sharper cutting edges. They therefore took that extra step in
evolution when they learned how to make tools which could
themselves
be used to make other more sophisticated tools. Harpoons, spears,
needles and sickles were made of bone or deer antlers, a move beyond
the expertise of Palaeolithic man.
At
the
Angel Hotel site were found scrapers, burins (a kind of
flint chisel) and borers. Also excavated were several potboilers
which were pieces of flint which were heated in the fire, then
dropped into a water-filled skin bag which also contained meat, in
order to warm it up in an attempt to cook it. This discovery of fire
opened up a whole new world to them, and it is possible that they
hollowed the first boats out of the trunks of trees, with the use of
fire.
Mesolithic
people may well have fished in the Blyth River with nets or bone
fishing hooks, and the place in Halesworth where the several streams
met might also have formed a meeting place for the nomadic groups who
might barter or exchange skins, flints or other merchandise.
All
this time men were continuing to travel long distances on foot laying
down the ancient roads and paths which were to become the green ways
of England, and the earliest of our roads. Peddar's Way,
Norfolk, still
exists and the Icknield Way in Norfolk - which became the A 11 -
travels west to meet the ancient pathways which connect with the
Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. These two roads ran very close to a
pre-history
industrial area which is pock-marked with scores of chalky hollows
in the ground. Known as Grimes Graves, in Thetford Forest, Norfolk,
these were flint mines created to meet the growing demand of the
toolmakers of the Neolithic era.
The
presence of a Mesolithic and Neolithic encampment near the Angel
Hotel came to light when the Halesworth relief road was started in
1988. The team from the Halesworth Museum found flint tools and
pottery sherds ranging from the Mesolithic up to the Saxon period -
8,000 BC to 850 AD. Examples of these finds, as well as others from
Chediston, Wissett and Walpole are on display in the Halesworth and
District Museum.