"In response to German gas attacks on the Western Front, an artillery range and experimental ground were established on chalk downland at Porton Down in 1916. The site now covers 7,000 acres. Consequently, many archaeological monuments from the Neolithic period onwards have been preserved there, making it one of the country's finest prehistoric landscapes. J.F.S. Stone explored and published its archaeology from 1931 until his death in 1957. Since then there have been many more discoveries, surveys and excavations." "This book details the rich and diverse heritage existing at Porton Down, including over 100 Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, two groups of Neolithic flint mines, miles of Iron Age banks and ditches, two Bronze Age cremation cemeteries, a Saxon cemetery, an eighteenth-century folly site, the foundation of a Victorian mansion, nineteenth-century farms, and remains from the early military period. This legacy is typical of what has been ploughed out elsewhere, and by exploring these monuments the author presents a microcosm of the archaeology of southern England. Book jacket."-- From the cover.

What is there and why it's there : by way of introduction --|t J.F.S. Stone : the man and his works --|t Chalk and flint : geology and raw materials --|t The flint mines of Porton Down : the making of an industrial landscape --|t Dwellings for the living, houses for the dead --|t Lines of contention : division of land in the Bronze and Iron Ages --|t Sheep : dung, dew-ponds, drovers and drowners --|t The eighteenth century : the Surveyor General, the surveyors, and gunflint knappers --|t The nineteenth century and its legacy --|t Latter days --|t Final impressions.