Trove of 19,000 Artifacts Found at Residential Development in Southern England

Some 19,000 artifacts dating as far back as the Mesolithic period were discovered in the United Kingdom, Newsweek reported on Monday.

They were found at a residential development project at Calthorpe Gardens, on the outskirts of the historic market town Banbury in southern England. The contractor Orbit Homes, which is overseeing the development, announced the find in a press release.

A group of Mesolithic flint tools dating from 10000 BCE to 4000 BCE were among the oldest artifacts found.

The remains of a small settlement from the Late Bronze Age or the Middle or Late Iron Age was also unearthed, as was an Anglo-Saxon cemetery from the early Medieval period. There, the remains of 52 people have been identified, along with a variety of such goods as beaded necklaces, pendants, and weapons. Among those items was a gold pendant with an intertwined serpent design.

“This is a once-in-a-decade site … with once-in-a-lifetime kinds of finds that are coming up—it’s incredible,” BA field archaeologist Hayley Parsons said in video released by Orbit Homes.

“I think the potential of the site is to show people were here over a very long period of time, doing different things at different times,” McLeish said. “We’ve been so lucky at Calthorpe Gardens, we’ve been totally spoiled with the finds that have been recovered.”