Description
PAS-Recorded Flint Flake from Suffolk
This carefully chosen archaeological artefact is a complete worked flint flake found near Lowestoft in Suffolk, England, UK. It has been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme under reference SWYOR-77F281 and is identified as possibly Neolithic, dating broadly to approximately 3500–2100 BC.
A copy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme report is included with the artefact, providing valuable supporting documentation for its recorded identification and provenance. The listing photographs show the exact flint flake you will receive. This is not a stock photograph or a representative example selected from a group.
Please examine the photographs carefully to view the artefact’s complete dimensions, colour, surface texture, fracture characteristics, surviving edges and natural signs of age. Full sizing is shown in the photo.
Complete Prehistoric Flint Flake
A flint flake is a deliberately detached piece of stone produced during the manufacture or maintenance of a prehistoric tool. Flakes could be generated while reducing a larger flint core, shaping an axehead or preparing another implement. Many were also selected and used directly because the freshly fractured edges could be exceptionally sharp.
This example is recorded as complete, meaning that its principal technological elements have survived rather than being represented only by a broken fragment. A complete flake can preserve evidence of the original point of impact, the direction in which the fracture travelled and the surface of the parent core from which it was removed.
Flakes are important archaeological objects because they preserve individual moments within the stone-working process. Even a relatively simple example records a deliberate action performed by a prehistoric person who understood how flint would respond to a controlled strike.
Neolithic Period in Britain
The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, was a period of major social and economic change in Britain. Communities increasingly adopted farming, kept domesticated animals, cultivated crops and constructed substantial monuments. Stone remained the principal material used for many cutting, scraping and woodworking tools.
Flint-working traditions continued to play an essential role in everyday life. Skilled craftspeople produced flakes, blades, scrapers, knives, arrowheads and polished axeheads using techniques developed over generations.
A flint flake could have served as a cutting tool without extensive further modification. Its sharp edge may have been suitable for processing animal tissue, cutting plants, trimming fibres, preparing hides or working softer materials such as wood and bone. Some flakes were retouched by removing smaller chips from their margins, while others were used in their freshly struck condition.
Flint Material and Geological Formation
Flint is a hard, silica-rich material commonly found as nodules and bands within chalk deposits. It formed through complex chemical processes within ancient marine sediments, where dissolved silica accumulated and replaced portions of the original carbonate material.
The resulting stone has a dense, fine-grained structure and breaks with a characteristic conchoidal fracture. This creates smooth, curved fracture surfaces and edges that can be extremely sharp. These predictable properties made flint one of the most valuable natural materials available to prehistoric communities.
Flint can vary considerably in appearance, displaying shades of grey, black, brown, cream or blue-grey. Its surface may also develop lighter patination, mineral staining or weathered textures after prolonged burial or exposure.
Any variations in colour, small chips, worn ridges, soil deposits or mineralised areas visible on this artefact form part of its individual archaeological history. They reflect the properties of the original stone and the environmental conditions it experienced following manufacture and deposition.
Prehistoric Flint-Knapping Method
The production of a flint flake involved striking a prepared core with a hammerstone or another percussor. The knapper selected a suitable striking platform and delivered a controlled blow, causing a fracture to travel through the stone and detach a flake.
A complete struck flake may preserve a striking platform near its proximal end. Below this point, a rounded swelling known as the bulb of percussion can sometimes be present. Fine ripples or compression marks may radiate away from the impact area, showing the direction in which the force travelled through the flint.
The outer face, known as the dorsal surface, may retain negative scars left by earlier flake removals from the parent core. The inner or ventral surface is generally smoother and was created when the flake separated from the core.
These technological features help archaeologists distinguish deliberately struck flint from naturally fractured stone. They can also provide information about the methods, skill and intentions of the person who produced the artefact.
Possible Function and Use
Freshly struck flint flakes were versatile tools. Their thin cutting edges could perform tasks that would otherwise have required a more extensively shaped implement. A flake might be used only briefly and discarded, or retained and modified for repeated use.
Possible activities included cutting meat, separating animal tissue, preparing hides, slicing plant stems, trimming fibres and working wood. A thicker edge could also be suitable for scraping or other controlled tasks.
The precise function of an individual flint artefact is generally determined through microscopic use-wear analysis. Contact with different materials may leave edge rounding, polish, striations or small patterns of damage. Without such analysis, the flake is best appreciated as evidence of prehistoric stone-working and a potentially functional cutting implement.
Lowestoft and the Suffolk Landscape
The artefact was found near Lowestoft in Suffolk, an area shaped by coastal processes, rivers, glacial activity and changing sea levels. East Anglia contains extensive chalk and gravel deposits capable of supplying flint suitable for tool production.
During prehistory, the landscape around the modern Suffolk coast would have changed repeatedly. Areas now submerged beneath the North Sea were once dry land, while river valleys, wetlands and woodland provided food, water and raw materials for human communities.
Flint could be collected directly from chalk exposures, coastal deposits, river gravels or glacial sediments. Access to this useful material allowed prehistoric people in East Anglia to manufacture a wide variety of tools and hunting equipment.
The recorded Lowestoft-area provenance gives this specimen particular regional interest and makes it suitable for a collection focused on Suffolk archaeology, East Anglian prehistory or British lithic technology.
Portable Antiquities Scheme Record
This complete flint flake has been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme under reference SWYOR-77F281. The PAS documents archaeological objects discovered by members of the public in England and Wales, creating permanent records of their identification and reported find circumstances.
A PAS reference adds valuable documentation by connecting the physical artefact with a recognised archaeological database entry. The supplied copy of the PAS report should be retained with the specimen as part of its provenance and collection history.
The report records the object as a complete flint flake that is possibly Neolithic. This appropriately cautious dating reflects the fact that simple flake technology was used across several prehistoric periods, while the artefact’s characteristics are compatible with stone-working traditions of the Neolithic.
Archaeological and Collectable Significance
Worked flakes are among the most direct forms of evidence for prehistoric tool manufacture. They record the reduction of raw stone and reveal how ancient craftspeople selected materials, prepared cores and controlled fracture.
This complete example is particularly useful as an educational or comparative specimen because its surviving form can be examined for technological features associated with deliberate flint-knapping. It offers a tangible connection to the activities of people living in prehistoric Suffolk several thousand years ago.
Its PAS documentation, complete condition and recorded British provenance make it suitable for an archaeology collection, lithic reference set, Neolithic display or museum-style cabinet.
Actual Artefact and Included Documentation
You will receive the exact complete flint flake shown in the listing photographs. The artefact has been individually and carefully selected for its prehistoric character, complete form, recorded Lowestoft-area provenance and archaeological interest.
This is a genuine physical archaeological specimen and includes a generic Certificate of Authenticity card supported by a lifetime authenticity guarantee. A copy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme report for reference SWYOR-77F281 is also included.
This possible Neolithic flint artefact makes a distinctive addition to a British archaeology collection and an excellent historical gift for a prehistory enthusiast, lithics collector, archaeologist, teacher or anyone interested in ancient craftsmanship and Stone Age technology.
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