The evaluation investigated a dry valleyat the foot of the North Downs escarpment, located immediately adjacent to two reputed neolithic monuments. The White Horse Stone and Smythe's Megalith. The evaluation discovered no evidence of Neolithic activity associated with these monuments.

Four trenches in the upper part of the valley revealed a thin scatter of archaeological features. Most were boundary or drainage ditches of Late Bronze Age/early Iron Age date, although one ditch did produce a single Roman rimsherd. There was little evidence for surviving archaeological deposits on the western valley slope or in the central part of the valley bottom. A thick localised deposit of flint gravel, sealing a single sherd of Neolithic pottery was identified close to the reported position of Smythe's Megalith. Although it was interpreted in the field as a possible burial mound, subsequent assessment of the composition and location od the deposit suggest that it is more likely to be a product of soil erosion.

An extensive buried soil horizon, cut by ditches and a large, shallow pit , was identified in five trenches in the south-east corner of the site, sealed beneath as much as 1.2m of hillwash. Although the archaeological features were undated, both the buried soil horizon through which they were cut, and the overlying hilwash, yielded small quantities of LBA/EIA pottery. An assessment of molluscs and plant macrofossils from the colluvial deposits and buried soil indicates a change from woodland to open country, occuring in the LBA/EIA, perhaps as a result of human activity.

The evaluation also investigated the possible line of the Roman Road between Rochester and Hastings. No evidence was found to support or disprove the identification. A deliberate deposit of animal bone and LBA/EIA pottery was found in a pit beside this trackway, incorporating the bones of at least two foetal or newborn lambs, as well as adult sheep bones, accompanied by the plough-truncated base of a small LBA/EIA vessel(1).

Additional bibliography. (2)

<1> Oxford Archaeological Unit, 1997, White Horse Stone, Aylesford, Kent Archaeological Evaluation Report (Unpublished document). SKE7037.

<2> Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture, 2005, The Late Prehistoric Pottery from Excavations Along Section 1 of the CTRL (Unpublished document). SKE16555.