Monument record 0632104000 - Taplow Hillfort: earlier prehistoric activity

Worked flint, much of it in fresh condition, was found in evaluation trial trenches dug by Wessex Archaeology, much of it from Trench 1, which was found later to cut across Early Bronze Age hollows, Late Bronze Age ditch, palisade and post-rows and Iron Age rampart. It may have come from the Early Bronze Age hollows. It is likely to have been redeposited. 107 pieces of worked flint were found, all flakes or blades and therefore thought to be Mesolithic, though some of it may have been Early Bronze Age as it was found in the same trench as a sherd of Early Bronze Age grog-tempered pottery. Burnt flint was also found (B4).
The most significant features representing activity predating the Late Bronze Age defences were a few tree-throw holes containing possibly in situ Mesolithic or earlier Neolithic worked flint, a group of intercut hollows containing sherds of Collared urns and further worked flint, and a small ditch in the south-east corner of the site which, although it contained no artefacts, must, on stratigraphic grounds, predate the Late Bronze Age defences. A number of residual artefacts also provide evidence for activity predating the hillfort. Most of these are pieces of worked flint. The most intriguing of the residual finds are a few sherds of pottery and fragments of cylindrical loomweights which, like some of the radiocarbon dates, date to the Middle Bronze Age. No features can however be dated confidently to this period, and it does not appear that a focus of Middle Bronze Age settlement existed within the excavated area (B3).