A Prehistoric Pebble Hammer from Goodnestone, near Faversham

In June 2020, whilst walking along part of the Swale Heritage Trail within the parish of Graveney with Goodnestone, some 750m WSW of Goodnestone church, the writer noticed a holed pebble lying on the surface of the public footpath at NGR TR 03706 61374. An examination of the object revealed that the hole was manufactured, not natural. The findspot is on a low ridge with an elevation of approximately 9m aod overlooking an area of springs immediately to the west. It lies some 3.5km south of the Swale Estuary and 1.5km SE of Faversham Creek. The subsoil here is Head Brickearth overlying Thanet Formation sand.

What was discovered is approximately half of a perforated prehistoric pebble hammer (Fig. 1). The object is made from a smooth quartzite pebble, perhaps originally from a beach, which, when complete, would have been oval in shape. A lack of surface striations indicates that further polishing has not taken place.

[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 Pebble hammer from Goodnestone, near Faversham.|Image[/fg][pg311]

It is broken across the centre of the perforation, which is hour-glass in section, indicating that it was worked from both sides. There is some light use-wear on the rounded end of the object. On the external surfaces, the quartzite is orange- brown in colour with red-brown inclusions. Internally, it is light grey with obvious graining of the quartz and showing what appears to be a flaw line. It weighs 125 g with a maximum extant length of 48 mm, width of 63 mm and thickness of 31 mm. The diameter of the perforation ranges from 13 mm (internal) to 26 mm (external). Artefacts of this type are usually made from quartzite or sandstone pebbles and are often referred to as pebble hammers or maceheads. Similar though they are, there are distinctions between the classes. Maceheads generally have a roughly parallel-sided perforation, whereas pebble hammers have an obvious hour-glass perforation and show signs of use on the ends.[fn1]

The close dating of these artefacts is problematic and they could date from any period between the Mesolithic, which is well attested, through to the early Bronze Age.[fn2] Some are even known from Iron Age and Roman contexts, although they are not necessarily of such late date; they may have been found and curated in much the same way as modern finds are. Neolithic worked flints have been found 100m to the north of the findspot, but the current find is from an unstratified surface context and thus has no secure complementary dating evidence, so cannot automatically be assumed to also be of Neolithic date.[fn3]

Pebble hammers are relatively uncommon finds in Kent. Only twelve were listed in 1988, with no particular concentration.[fn4] Three more, from Dover, Sturry and Lenham, are listed in the Kent HER database. A further two, from Whitfield and Tudeley, were published in 1989 and 1991.[fn5] Another, from Wingham, was published in 2009.[fn6] The Portable Antiquities Scheme database includes a nearly complete quartzite example from Ringwould, closely resembling the current find.[fn7] Finally, there is a recent find from Pembury, bringing the total number now recorded from Kent (including the current find) to 21.[fn8]

The current find, which is a useful addition to the corpus of these artefacts in Kent, has been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, reference KENT- ECCC79.

David Holman

References

Allen, T.G., 2021, ‘Prehistoric to medieval discoveries along the A21 Tonbridge-Pembury Dualling Scheme’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 142, 188-234.

Anderson-Whymark, H., 2021, Specialist report 2: Pebble hammer, in Allen 2021, 219-221.

Clough, T.H. McK & Cummings, W.A., (eds) 1979 Stone Axe Studies, CBA Research Report 23, London

Clough, T.H. McK & Cummings, W.A., (eds) 1988 Stone Axe Studies Vol. 2, CBA Research Report 67, London

Parfitt, K., 2009, ‘A prehistoric pebble hammer from Wingham Well’, Kent Arch. Review, 175, 97-98.

Roe, F.E.S., 1979, ‘Typology of stone implements with shaftholes’, in Clough, T.H. McK., and Cummings, W.A. 1779, 23-48, London

Woodcock, A.G., Kelly, D.B. and Woolley, A.R., 1988, ‘The petrological identification of stone implements from south-east England’, in Clough, T.H. McK., & Cummings, W.A. 1988, 21-33, London. [pg312]

[fn]1|Roe 1979, 36.[/fn]

[fn]2|Woodcock, Kelly & Woolley 1988, 30.[/fn]

[fn]3|Kent HER number TR 06 SW 312.[/fn]

[fn]4|Clough & Cummings 1988, 164.[/fn]

[fn]5|Archaeologia Cantiana, 107, 396-397; Archaeologia Cantiana, 109, 339-340.[/fn]

[fn]6|Parfitt 2009.[/fn]

[fn]7|KENT-4DF72B. The PAS database also includes four naturally perforated flint nodules which may potentially have served a similar purpose (KENT-6DE238, KENT-6E0A70, KENT-B093B7, PUBLIC-987DE4).[/fn]

[fn]8|Anderson-Whymark 2021.[/fn]