It's an ordinary suburban garden – with an apple tree, paving and borders. But its owner has uncovered an astonishing secret history that is delighting archaeologists and helping to paint a new picture of life in the region thousands of years ago. The remarkable amount of ancient flints Aled Jones has dug up in his tiny front garden in Bridlington (Yorkshire, England) suggests it was once the site of a Neolithic settlement. Mr Jones made his discoveries while weeding the borders at his home on the outskirts of the resort, which sits on one of the highest natural points in the town.
     To date, artefacts he has uncovered include a beautiful Neolithic stone bead, arrowhead and toffee-coloured blade, made sometime between 4,500 BCE and 2000 BCE. Enthralled by what he has found, his next move could be to dig his patio up and carry out a full excavation. Mr Jones, who has a university diploma in archaeology and the landscape, said: "It just amazed me that things that old should turn up in my garden. There's too much stuff for it to be a coincidence. It may be that there was a small fortified encampment here in Neolithic times. Archaeologists believe that Neolithic hill-forts were not used for military purposes but to pen in cattle and other livestock."
     Dave Evans, manager of Humber Archaeology Partnership, said Mr Jones's finds would be entered on to the county Sites and Monuments Record. They tie in nicely with the recent nationally important discovery a couple of miles away of three Neolithic houses on the Sewerby Cottage farm site. "If Mr Jones has found a bead as well, there are probably going to be Neolithic houses nearby," Mr Evans said. "This is the first stuff we've had from this part of Bridlington because so much has been redeveloped, probably before the archaeology unit was set up. "It's a big black area for us and it is important to get this information and it does help put a lot of stuff that's turning up to the north on the other side of Martongate into context. We can see that essentially there is a lot of Neolithic activity on the south-facing slopes to the north of Bridlington." Flints have been recovered from nearly every field on Flamborough Head some five miles away, which was a hotbed of prehistoric activity.

Source: Yorkshire Post Today (26 June 2006)