4000-2200 BC Neolithic

Discovering evidence of the Neolithic in central England is not easy. Unlike southern and northern England, the landscape does not have many visible remains from this period. However, recent research has demonstrated that this region of the country was fully exploited by early farmers.

A number of waste pits dating to the Neolithic have provided archaeologists with invaluable information about how people were farming in this region. We know that communities were growing wheat and barley though the remains of hazelnut shells tell us that natural resources were also still being used. From sites where Neolithic land surfaces have been preserved there is also evidence that communities were ploughing the soil.

Although now flattened by modern ploughing, long barrows were built in central England for burying the dead, as was the case in the south and east of the country. There is also evidence that in the later Neolithic, long barrows were replaced by round barrows, which would presumably have housed one or more individual burials, rather than a group burial.