Britain Before the Days of Writing Quiz

Answer: Heidelbergensis

Boxgrove dates to a warm period about 500,000 years ago. It was originally thought to be 200,000 years old. Apart from the human remains (a tibia and two teeth), what makes the site special is the huge preserved land surface - it is possible to reconstruct flint working methods from the scatter of chips and even reassemble flint nodules with a hand axe sized hole in the middle. Some of the bones that were found had marks that are very similar to those that would be made by a modern butcher.

Some sceptics have pointed out that Boxgrove is not far from Piltdown (the 'source' of the infamous fake ape man).

Answer: Alps or South Germany

His probable place of origin was found by looking at the isotopes in his teeth. The nearest place that produces the mix of isotopes he has is somewhere near Switzerland. His burial place was incredibly rich compared with that of his contemporaries and included two gold ornaments and copper knives.

The metal in the knives came from Spain or western France. Some people have called him the "King of Stonehenge". Near him was a second body with a pair of identical pieces of gold and an identical rare peculiarity in the bones of his feet.

This man was born locally but had spent time in his teens in central England or Scotland.

Answer: They all are

Barrows vary in shape from the bowl barrow, which is a mound with a ditch around it to a pond barrow, which is actually a depression surrounded by a low bank. Between these two are saucer barrows - a very low bowl barrow, then bell barrows, which have a flat area between the ditch and mound then disc barrows, which are bell barrows with a very small mound.

Answer: A circular or near circular monument with a bank and an internal ditch

Looser definitions allow the ditch to be external. If you use the strict definition it means Stonehenge (after which henges are named) does not count as a henge as it has an external ditch! There is no need for a henge to have any other structures such as standing stones.

Henges date from the late fourth millennium BC to the early Bronze Age and range in diameter between six metres and 450 metres (averaging just over 60 metres).

Answer: Early to mid Neolithic roughly circular structure with a ditch in several discontinuous sections

It is a puzzle what they were used for - the numerous entrances seem to rule out any practical use. There is some evidence they were used like Parsee "towers of silence" for animals and especially vultures to remove the flesh from bodies.

Answer: An Iron Age enclosure

Raths occur in southwest Wales and Ireland. They are similar to the rounds of Devon and Cornwall. The distinction between a small hill fort and a large rath is not clear.

Answer: Neolithic flint mines

They are in Norfolk. There are over 300 shafts up to twelve metres deep with galleries less than one metre high radiating from the base. It has been calculated up to 20 people could work one shaft at a time - half mining and the others removing spoil.

As far as I know, "Grimesbury" was made up by me.

Answer: Rinyo-clacton pottery

Rinyo-clacton pottery is Neolithic (2000-3000 BC) and was used all over Britain. (The two type sites where such pottery has been found are at opposite ends of Britain - Rinyo in the Orkneys and Clacton, near Colchester, not far from London). It is sometimes also called grooved ware.

Faience is a glass like substance used (in Britain) to make beads. It used to be thought to be evidence for Mycenaean contact but is now thought to have been made locally.

Deverel-Rimbury pottery dates from about 1400 BC and is mostly found in the southeast.

Palstaves are a type of Bronze axe - its cutting edge was usually less than 40mm across.

Answer: Pre 1750

An antiquary John Bagford published it in 1715. It was found by a Mr Conyers (probably in the late 17th century) in Gray's Inn, London mixed up with the remains of an elephant. The finders believed it had been used by an ancient Briton to kill one of the emperor Claudius's elephants.

These axes are more efficient than they look. Some people claimed they were just cores from making flake tools so as an experiment a modern butcher was given some reproduction hand axes and some flakes. He found the idea of using the flakes ridiculous.

He did have problems cutting through bones but apart from that the only problem he had was when he underestimated the sharpness of the axe and damaged the hide he was removing.

Answer: A large mound

The mound is Silbury hill-the largest prehistoric mound in Europe - several people have tunnelled into it but found no sign of a burial. It was built about 2600 BC, is 39m high, with a base of two hectares and a volume of 354,000 cubic metres of which 106,000 cubic metres are a natural ridge and the rest is chalk quarried from the 38m wide and 9m deep ditch.

It is part of a prehistoric landscape including the huge stone circle built between 2600 and 1600 BC, which was big enough for most of the village of Avebury to be built inside it. The circle is twelve hectares (30 acres) with a 1.2 km long bank and ditch - the bank was 22.5 m thick at the base and about 7.5 m high with a ditch that was 9m deep and 4.5 m wide at the base inside it. Inside the ditch was the main circle of about 100 undressed stones of up to 40 tons, two smaller circles and other stone settings.

This henge was connected to other sites by at least two avenues, one was 2.4 km long, of 100 pairs of stones, each pair of pillar like one facing a diamond shaped one (male and female?) leading to a site known as the sanctuary. From the sanctuary the top of Silbury hill is level with the horizon.

The stones were toppled as an "act of piety" in the Middle Ages - one man known as the "barber surgeon" paid for this with his life - archaeologists found his body crushed under a stone. Later they were used as a source of building stone.