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Diagrams showing Types of Neolithic Hut-floors and Cooking Pits at Hayes Common, Kent.

EARLY MAN

Grovehurst, Milton, near Sittingbourne. Some good examples of neolithic hut- floors were found here in the year 1871, but the exact archaeological significance is consider- ably obscured by the fact that with curious persistence they have been described as Celtic in the published accounts.^[1] Among the remains found were large numbers of flakes, and various implements such as arrow-heads, knives, ground celts, etc., the whole mixed up with a layer of vegetable matter that had accumulated upon the floor to a depth of about 1 foot.

Hayes. On Hayes Common^[2] there are several groups of neolithic hut-floors associated with lines of ditches and mounds. These are circular in outline, they vary in form and size from shallow depressions a few inches deep and about 4 ft. in diameter to hollows 2 ft. 6 in. deep and about 30 ft. in diameter, and they fall into the three following pretty well defined types : —

1. Large pits from 10 ft. to 30 ft. in diameter, and from 6 in. to 2 ft. 6 in. deep, surrounded by a mound, with trace of entrance, and containing no considerable traces of fire. (See diagram,

2. Pits similar in every way, but with a low conical mound in the centre. (See diagram, fig. 2.)

3. Small pits from 4 ft. to 10 ft. in diameter without an encircling mound, and containing numerous reddened peb- bles, fragments of charred wood and other indications of fire. (See diagram, fig. 3.) The first and second types were undoubtedly the floors of huts for human habitation, whilst the third represents the sites of cooking fires placed at some little distance away from the dwellings, which were constructed of interlaced branches and other inflammable materials. From the shape and contents of these cooking holes it seems probable that the fire was made on a large scale and maintained for a long time so as to make the earth sufficiently hot to cook whole animals. This theory agrees with the evidence afforded by the arrangement and dis- position of the hut-floors ; because it is clear that the dwellings were built in groups of from four to six huts, each capable of accommodating from two to six individuals. Several of these groups occur on Hayes Common, and it is extremely probable that the neolithic tribes here lived in small communities. Neolithic implements and flakes have been found at various

parts, but it is probable that many more lie buried in the turf and the layer of peat which lies below it. In addition to the actual earthen circles round the ancient hut-floors there are, evidently in association with them, a good many lines of ditches and mounds enclosing spaces in which animals may very well have been secured. Attention was drawn to these works in 1878 by Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, who read a paper entitled 'Notes on Kentish Earth- works'^[3] at a meeting of the Kent Archaeological Society at Bromley in that year. Mr. Petrie drew

1. Arch. Cant xviii. 122-26; and 'Coll. Cant. 1-5.
2. Arch. Cant xviii. 15-16 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2) xii. 258-63.
3. Arch. Cant. xiii. 8-16.