Plinth box 10

Site: Mia’s stone Date: July 2009 What it represents: Future generations The plinth stone: A stone collected by my two-year-old daughter Provenance: From our garden Material: Mottled grey flint Maximum dimension: 34mm Weight: 15gm Loaned by: M Pitts collection Mia collects stones and snail shells in her red plastic bucket, and gave me this piece …

Plinth box 9

Site: Brandon, Suffolk and Nuku’alofa, Tonga, south Pacific Date:    1800 What it represents: The 18th and 19th century expansion of European trade, culture and aggression around the world The plinth stone: A gunflint for a common musket Provenance: Made in a workshop in East Anglia and found on Salote Road, Nuku’alofa, Tonga, on January 16 …

Plinth box 8

Site: Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire Date: 14th century What it represents: Medieval Christendom and a peak in world architecture and engineering The plinth stone: A fragment from the cathedral exterior Provenance: From a pinnacle on the north-east corner of the northern transept, which was unstable and taken down and replaced 2000–2006 Material: Lincoln stone, a local …

Plinth box 7

Site: Offa’s Dyke, Gloucestershire Date: AD785–790 What it represents: The origins of British society in warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the aftermath of Roman rule The plinth stone: A piece of stone from the rampart of the dyke Provenance: Collected in 2007 from an area of erosion on the dyke just north of Devil’s Pulpit Material: …

Plinth box 6

Site: Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland Date: AD120s What it represents: The first and most significant invasion from outside Britain, bringing political and cultural innovations that transformed the lives of people whose ancestors had known the land for millennia The plinth stone: Part of a squared stone from the outer face of the wall Provenance: Excavated in …

Plinth box 5

Site: Stonehenge, Wiltshire Date: 3000–2000BC What it represents: The ultimate vision in religion, politics and technology in the last few centuries of stone age culture The plinth stone: A piece of Welsh bluestone, once part of a standing stone Provenance: Excavated in 1980 Material: Spotted dolerite originally from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, one of …

Plinth box 4

Site: Carn Brea, Cornwall Date: 4000–3500BC What it represents: The change from thousands of generations spent living entirely on native wild foods, to farming with alien domesticated plants and animals, and the first warfare The plinth stone: An arrowhead Provenance: Excavated 1970–73 on a hilltop between Redruth and Camborne, whose eastern summit had been enclosed …

Plinth box 3

Site: Bed of North Sea between Shetland and Norway Date: 16,000–8000BC What it represents: The last, sophisticated hunter-gatherers (modern humans) to possess Britain, when lower sea levels meant it was a peninsula of continental Europe The plinth stone: A small fragment of a stone tool Provenance: Retrieved in geological core for oil prospecting in 1981 …

Plinth box 2

Site: Boxgrove, West Sussex Date: 524–478,000 years ago What it represents: Homo heidelbergensis, one of the most sophisticated early human species ever seen, some 350,000 years before full Neanderthals evolved The plinth stone: A handaxe Provenance: Excavated in Quarry 1B in 1990, at the waterhole where the hominin fossils were found Material: Flint Maximum dimension: …

Plinth box 1

Site: Pakefield, Suffolk Date: 750–680,000 years ago What it represents: The first human species north of the Alps The plinth stone: A flake, struck from a larger piece, that could have been used for cutting plants or animal flesh, or could be a byproduct of making a tool Provenance: Excavated on July 4 2006, from …