Discover Warwickshire’s Prehistoric Past
See the amazing skill it took to create early stone tools, get your children into cave painting and see one of Warwickshire’s world history wonders at a special event at St John’s House Museum in Warwick on Saturday 30 January.
Warwickshire County Council’s Museum Service is holding the event to celebrate one of its finest objects – a Stone Age Handaxe – which has been selected for the BBC’s A History of the World project. The axe is the oldest object made by our human ancestors found in Warwickshire and is one of just ten chosen to tell Coventry and Warwickshire’s story.
From 11am –3pm Karl Lee, a renowned flint knapper, will be demonstrating how axes and arrowheads were made, there will be craft and cave painting activities for children and talks with a Warwickshire archaeologist and geologist about how our ancestors lived 500,000 years ago.
The Waverley Wood Handaxe is one of ten items chosen from Coventry
and Warwickshire by the BBC and local museums for the BBC’s A History of the World project. Another of the County Museum Service’s objects, The Sheldon Tapestry Map of Warwickshire which will be on display at the Market Hall museum when it re-opens later in Spring, has also been selected for its ability to tell humankind’s story through the things we have made.
Sara Wear, Keeper of Archaeology for Warwickshire County Council’s Museum Service, said: “The Stone Age handaxe is one of the earliest examples of human ingenuity and creativity and is known as the ‘Swiss army Knife of the Stone Age’ world. Such finds are extremely rare and the Waverley Wood Handaxe is beautiful and particularly well preserved.”
The axe on show was found in 1988. In 2004 another very fine hand axe was found close to the site, in a quarry in Bubbenhall by John Greene the quarry manager, along with other hand tools and the bones of straight-tusked elephants.
Cllr Chris Saint, Portfolio Holder for Culture Leisure and Housing at Warwickshire County Council, said: “Warwickshire’s County Museum Service is world class and I am delighted that two of our objects have been chosen, and especially proud that all seven museums involved are working together. The project is a special opportunity for us all to be part of telling Coventry and Warwickshire’s story for the BBC’s A History of the World.”
About Warwickshire’s Primitive Past -
People first arrived in Warwickshire half a million years ago during the Old Stone Age when small family groups roamed a thickly wooded landscape in search of food.
They used simple stone tools such as handaxes and scrapers. The total population of the area in those days may have been as low as 40. There is evidence of a temporary camp site at Waverley Wood Farm Pit, near Leamington, whilst elsewhere, particularly in north Warwickshire, other large handaxes have been found suggesting repeated visits.
This early phase came to an end with the onset of the Ice Age, an immensely long period during which there is no evidence of a human presence in Warwickshire.