ABSTRACT
Even a cursory glance at a geological map of Britain reveals the extraordinary variety of raw materials capable of being worked and used as tools. Within this mosaic of resources, quality is highly variable, and many stones are far from evenly distributed. The main sources of good-quality flint are located in the chalklands of southern and eastern Britain, although smaller deposits occur more widely in areas of clay-with-flints and in riverine and coastal locations. These flint deposits are augmented by a variety of metamorphic and igneous stone sources, both in their original geological contexts and as erratics carried by the glaciers. These range from the porphyry of Shetland through to the gabbros of Cornwall, and figure 4 offers no more than a broad sketch of some of the sources exploited during the Neolithic and Bronze Age (fig. 4).
