During an archaeological investigation on land at Court Stair Country Club, Pegwell Road, Ramsgate, Kent, the earliest feature investigated on the site was the pit-like feature provisionally identified during the evaluation as of possible Neolithic date. When fully investigated, this proved to be a large, roughly oval pit measuring 3.35m northeast-southwest and 1.98m northwest-southeast, with a maximum depth of 0.24m. The feature, which may have been a naturally occurring hollow or deliberately cut into the natural Chalk and Brickearth, had a slightly undulating base and gently sloping sides. The pit’s single fill of slightly orange-tinged, mid-brown brickearth contained
a large amount of purposely struck flint, with a total of 138 pieces recovered during the 2020 excavation and 11 during the 2019 evaluation. The recovered flintwork consists of blades, scrapers, notches, burins, microliths, bladelets, worked cores, hammerstones, nodules, test pieces and debitage; the assemblage overall representing all stages of the manufacturing process. Ninety percent of the assemblage was recovered from the pit fill, with most recovered on the base of the feature’s deeper parts, which surrounded a raised, flattopped natural chalk hummock extending from the pit’s western side into its centre. As most of the struck and worked flints were recovered from immediately around this hummock it was postulated that the hummock may have been used by the flint knappers as a convenient working platform, suggesting that the pit may have been at least partly man-made or modified. The assemblage was identified with a high degree of confidence as of Early Mesolithic date as it contained 29 microliths, sixteen of which being of the systematic blade-base technology characteristic of that period. The flintwork was therefore probably manufactured sometime during the late-glacial/early-post glacial period (approximately 10,000 - 9700 BP), although the absence of other characteristic types precludes further refinement in the dating. (information summarised from source) (1-2)

<1> Kent Archaeological Projects, 2019, Archaeological Assessment Report: Land at Court Stair Country Club, Pegwell Road, Ramsgate, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE57254.

<2> Pete Knowles and Tim Allen, 2020, A Rare Kentish Example of a Very Early Post-Glacial Flint Knapping Site at Court Stairs, Ramsgate (Unpublished document). SKE57257.