ABSTRACT
Lithic scatters have been recorded on the sand islands or 'Burtles', the foothills of the Nidons and on the slopes of the Polden Hills since the 1920s. This chapter presents an analysis of the lithic assemblage, both flint and chert, recovered by the Shapwick Project team across the parish, and includes details of raw material use, technology and typology. This work forms one part of a general re-consideration of prehistoric evidence for the region as a whole including prehistoric settlement in the Brue Valley and accepted economic models. Most of the evidence takes the form of lithic scatters identified during fieldwalking, a very different kind of data from excavated assemblages. A good proportion of the lithics recovered by the Project was complete, for example 136 of 248 of the retouched forms from fieldwalking and 28.5% of the total assemblage.
