NHER 50311 (Monument record) - Palaeolithic handaxe fragment and Mesolithic and later worked flints

Before 30 August 2006. Fieldwalking.
Various worked flints including:
1 Lower Palaeolithic pointed flint handaxe (mesial fragment). See sketch (S1).
1 Mesolithic tranchet axe, 12 blade cores (7 single-platform types and 5 two-platform types), 4 blade core face removal flakes, 2 core fragments, 1 end scraper, 56 blades (including blade segments and broken blades) and 61 flakes (including several blade-like pieces).
1 Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead.
2 ?Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age scrapers
1 undatable prehistoric notched piece, 1 retouched flake (with steep retouch along right edge), 10 burnt flints and 1 spherical pebble (possibly a hammerstone).
Identified by P. Robins (NCM), September 2013. See descriptions and notes in file. The presence of a tranchet axe of considerable size strongly suggests an Early Mesolithic date for at least part of this assemblage. The flint artefacts from this site are all sharp and unpatinated and without significant edge damage, suggesting they had undergone very little disturbance since they were originally napped.
E. Darch (NLA), 4 June 2007. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 23 April 2013.

This site is one of several concentrations of Mesolithic flint that have now been identified along the margins of Hockham Mere (which was drained in the late 18th century), suggesting this area saw significant occupation at this time. This assertion is supported by the analysis of microscopic charcoal fragments recovered from the former lake sediments. At Hockham, charcoal has been found throughout a series of deposits radiocarbon dated to 7500-3000 BC (S2). Sediments in nearby Quidenham Mere were found to be lacking corresponding concentrations of charcoal (S3), suggesting the fragments at Hockham were from adjacent small fires rather than forest fires (the other potential source of such material and one which would be expected to spread particles over a much greater distance). See also NHER 8992, NHER 15359 and NHER 25972.
P. Watkins (HES), 18 April 2013.