British discoveries

When young Craig Barnard joined a wildlife and history group, he was
hopeful of spotting a rare bird, digging up a few bits of old pottery or
maybe even finding out how our ancestors made spears.

But deep in the woods on a field trip, the 11-year-old made a find that
was to overturn one of the county's historians' most popular beliefs.

The ancient arrowhead unearthed by Craig and his friends led to the
discovery of that a Neolithic and Iron Age site described by experts as
"without question of the most important of its kind found in Norfolk".

Historians had long believed that the site in Breckland had been covered
in woodland for an aeon, but the discovery made by youngsters from
the Watton-based Wayland RSPB Wildlife Explorers' and Wildlife Group
proves that more recently it was open land favoured by Neolithic and
Iron Age settlers.

These important finds were put on public display for the first time at
Watton Junior School yesterday alongside brooches, Roman coins,
spearheads and even second world war shellcases– all found by the
Wayland children's group set up by keen historian Sean O'Reilly.
An unspoilt Northumbrian valley has been hailed as one of the finest ancient landscapes in Europe.

In July the final excavation in a 10-year series will start in the Breamish Valley as part of a programme of discovery spanning 10,000 years.

The wealth of finds and knowledge gained has stunned experts from Durham University, Northumberland Archaeology Group and Northumberland National Park who have been partners in the project.

"We knew when we started that it was a special landscape. Although we have only scratched the surface in a few tiny places we can now say that it is unsurpassed in interest throughout Europe," said national park archaeologist Paul Frodsham.

"There is nothing better in Europe. We will never know the full story because of a jigsaw of 1,000 pieces we now have only about two."

The venture has unearthed Bronze Age burial cairns of around 4,000 years ago on Turf Knowe, overlooking the valley, which contained five intact cremation urns now being examined at Durham. The burial site itself used what had been a summer hunting camp for Stone Age people from 7,000 years ago.