Flints from Hoxne, 1800

In 1797, in a brick quarry at Hoxne, a village in Sussex, England, John Frere found a number of what looked to him like stone tools.  They were dug out of layers of soil considerably below the surface.  Frere presented them to the Society of Antiquaries in London and his paper was published in 1800 in the Society’s journal, along with engravings of two of the flints.  Frere’s opinion was that the tools were “weapons of war, made by a people who had not the use of metals.”  He was right, but no one would pay further attention to his discovery for the next 59 years.  We now recognize these tools as the first human artifacts discovered in an undisturbed site and recognized as ancient by their discoverer.  For a map of the site, see the wall panel, “The Flints from Hoxne.”