Archaeologists Search for Oxford's Ancient Past

OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM—Researchers from Oxford Archaeology have uncovered a 6,000-year-old stone flake that a neolithic hunter may have whittled from a flint tool, according to a report in the Oxford Mail. They will seek to discover more clues to Oxfordshire's ancient past as they begin to excavate 200 trenches across South Oxford ahead of construction of a flood alleviation channel. The area that is now Oxford has history that goes back millenia and was mostly wet marshland until the Normans drained much of it sometime in the 11th and 12th centuries. The team also hopes to learn more about the Oxen Ford, the original route that gave Oxford it's name, long thought by scholars to have been covered by the city's Medieval-era North Hinksey Causeway. To read more about archaeology in England, go to “The Scientist's Garden.”