The Surrey Prehistoric Group was originally founded about 25 years ago as the Surrey Lithic Tool Research Group. It comprised an informal group of the Society's members interested in prehistoric flint and stone tools. As such, the Group arranged occasional fieldwalking, the study of collections of artefacts in museums, and formed a contact point for those who had found artefacts requiring identification.
Several years ago the Group changed its name to the Surrey Prehistoric Group to reflect the fact that members were frequently bringing pottery and metal artefacts (of all periods!) to meetings for identification, and were also interested in monuments as well as just lithic artefacts. The Group continues, however, to have particularly strong ties with the national Lithics Studies Society. No prehistoric period is ‘out of bounds' to research by members of the Group and new members with their own interests are always welcome. At present there is no subscription and all members of the Society are free to attend.
The Group, being an association of like-minded individuals, most of whom follow their own local research projects which usually involves fieldwalking collection with small scale excavation, exists primarily to increase communication between these "grass roots" archaeologists who often operate in quite specific locales in the county (whether topographic or geological). The Group has also traditionally had a number of members from academic institutions who are able to both place local work into a larger research context and in turn to be able to keep up with contemporary fieldwork.
The most active areas of research on which the Group is currently working include the prehistoric occupation of the Weald, later prehistoric activity on the North Downs, and the Palaeolithic artefacts from the Clay-with-flints.
If you are interested in attending meetings of the Group and would like to be notified of future events, please send an email to: rosemary.hooker@btinternet.com or write to The Prehistoric Group, c/o Surrey Archaeological Society, Castle Arch, Guildford GU1 3SX.
