The Neolithic period is noted for flint mining and some 150 can be found on Cissbury Down above Worthing. Usually 15-20 foot deep and the same in width. Models of these mines can be seen in Worthing Museum.

The first true invasion came during the middle of the third millennium B.C. Peoples, originally from the Mediterranean, landed first in Ireland and the South-West of England, and moved Eastward along the hills and chalk plateaux of the South. These were dark-haired, wiry people and they possessed the basic crafts of civilisation, including agriculture, weaving, pottery and animal domestication.

 

This civilisation centered on the chalk hills of the Salisbury Plain and great temples were built at Avebury and at Stonehenge. There were twelve hill-top settlements of which four were in Sussex, at Whitehawk above Brighton, Barkhale above Bignor, the Trundle North of Chichester and Coombe hill above Eastbourne.

 

The Neolithic invasion was probably stimulated by a rapid improvement in the climate and the settlements seem to have been concentrated on the Downs. A change of climate seems to have taken place in the next phase of Sussex history, The Bronze Age.

 

From across the Channel came a new race of peoples, known as the Beaker Folk. The Bronze age is also associated with a return to colder, drier conditions making the downland less hospitable whilst the Weald with its forests was more inviting. Life centered on small isolated farms with livestock enclosures and flint mining carried on as before due to the lack of bronze implements.

 

Occasionally Bronze Age burial sites are uncovered accidentally and large hoards of of bronze, consisting mainly of socketed and flanged axes are uncovered such as one at Black Rock, near Brighton and also at Wilmington and Bognor.

 

Typical flint mine of the Downland area

 

Cremation took over from burial and the remains were interred in round tumuli as opposed to the long mounds of the Neolithic period. One such Tumuli destroyed in Palmeira Avenue in Hove, during the nineteenth century yielded an amber cup, a polished double headed axe and whetstone. These are now owned by the Brighton museum and are considered highly treasured.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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