Flint 'side' scraper

DERSB : 1979.1510

Flint scraper found at Arbor Low, 6,000-3,000 years old (Neoltihic or Bronze Age).

Scrapers are a common stone tool found in many forms. They had many uses such as removing hair and fat from animal skin, and scraping bark to make sticks and handles. This is a 'side' scraper, meaning that it has been worked along one of its long sides to form a scraping tool.

Many stone tools have been found in the landscape around Arbor Low, suggesting this was an important focal point for prehistoric people, but no one really knows why or what people did there. Did people gather here seasonally to meet each other and celebrate festivals? The earthen bank and ditch of the henge were built around 4,500 years ago and can be seen from miles away. Around 500 years later a stone circle was added, hidden from view by the bank of the henge. Archaeologists are still debating whether or not the stones stood upright.

Arbor Low is situated slightly off the summit of a high, broad limestone ridge in the parish of Middleton and Smerrill. This area lies in the central uplands of the limestone plateau of Derbyshire. The name appears to derive from 'Eorthburg Hlaw' which means Earthwork Mound. The site is composed of a henge monument, consisting of a massive bank and internal ditch which forms an oval area. Inside this central area is a stone circle, currently flat, with a central cove. Two gaps in the ditch and bank form 'entrances' into the central area on the north-western and south-eastern sides of the monument. A large barrow has been superimposed into the bank in the south-eastern quadrant of the monument.