From outcrops to axeheads: determining the source of Group XX stone tool material in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire

Abstract The source of material for Group XX stone artefacts is reassessed using extant geological and petrological information and complemented with new field and artefact pXRF analyses. Our reassessment of extant archaeological and petrological data supports earlier conclusions that a possible origin for Group XX stone tools is in the Charnwood Forest area, just north of Leicester. Based on petrographic evidence, this source is now considered to lie within the geological Bradgate Formation. This formation is exposed in a broad, U-shaped band around the eastern and southern fringes of Charnwood Forest where the Ediacaran volcanic tuff rocks form rugged exposures penetrating the overlying Triassic sandstones and mudstones. A new study of Group XX artefacts at museums in Cambridge, Leicester, Lincoln, and Sheffield revealed a number of distinct morphologies, two of which lead us to suggest that they represent axehead templates that are likely to have derived from specific design and manufacturing, rather than from ad-hoc extraction or loose material selection and random shaping. New pXRF data are used to supplement existing information and similarities in immobile large ion lithophile and high field strength element concentrations between both artefacts and exposures, presenting the possibility that the immediate area near the Windmill Hill exposure of the Bradgate Formation, at Woodhouse Eaves, is close to, or indeed contains the source of, Group XX material.