Grime's Graves

Grime's Graves is a large Neolithic flint mining complex in Norfolk, England [1]. It lies 8 km north east from Brandon, Suffolk in the East of England [1]. It was worked between c. 2600 and c. 2300 BC, although production may have continued through the Bronze and Iron Ages and later [1]. The scheduled monument extends over an area of some 37 ha and consists of at least 433 shafts dug into the natural chalk to reach seams of flint [1]. The largest shafts are more than 14 m deep and 12 m in diameter at the surface [1]. An upper 'topstone' and middle 'wallstone' seam of flint was dug through on the way to the deeper third 'floorstone' seam which most interested the miners [1]. The miners used picks fashioned from the antler of red deer [1]. Grime's Graves was first extensively explored by the archaeologist William Greenwell in 1868 [1].