The project has involved an audit and updating of existing HER data for the Mesolithic in Somerset, leading to a 40% increase in entries. Final Mesolithic sites with palaeoenvironmental and palaeoeconomic potential have been identified. This involved borehole surveys, geophysics and test pits to examine the evidence for Mesolithic and early Neolithic activity at the wetland / dryland interface in the Somerset Levels. Palaeoenvironmental studies provided evidence of the changing character of the wetlands beside three known Mesolithic sites on sandy burtle sediments of Pleistocene date, at Greylake, Chedzoy and Shapwick. The environmental evidence provided by these three sites is mainly of the late Mesolithic and early Neolithic. A fourth case study of Queen’s Sedgemoor produced a long peat sequence dating between 5600-200 cal BC.
The chronology of changing environments and Mesolithic and Neolithic human activity is provided by 58 radiocarbon and two optically stimulated luminescence dates. Development of dating models at an early stage in the post-excavation process facilitated targeted palaeoenvironmental analysis at the horizons most relevant to research questions and project objectives. The chronological model has facilitated comparison with the results of the Somerset Levels Project.
Mesolithic sites at Shapwick and Chedzoy, previously thought of as mainly early and middle Mesolithic respectively, and thus predating the development of peats in their area and of limited potential for organic preservation, both include artefacts and biological evidence of the final centuries of the Mesolithic. There is some evidence for Mesolithic burning from around 6000 cal BC at Shapwick and Queen’s Sedgemoor. There was limited evidence for human activity around the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition but there is clearer evidence of activity, probably relating to pastoralism from pollen and insects at Shapwick and from pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs at Chedzoy, in both cases from c. 3300 cal BC.