Kilham : Palaeolithic And Mesolithic (500,000 BC – 5000 BC)

Research in the vicinity of Milfield village to the north did not produce diagnostic Late Upper Palaeolithic finds, and it seems likely that this area was not densely settled until the Late Mesolithic (Waddington 1999, 180-1).

Around Kilham, artefacts of Mesolithic type are recorded by the Northumberland Sites and Monuments Record (NSMR) from Pawston Hill (Site Gazetteer catalogue no. [NT 862318). Pawston Hill, in common with other upland areas in the Cheviots, would have been wooded throughout this period (op. cit., 104 -6).

Cheviot slopes such as this were probably occupied only seasonally, and these artefacts may have been discarded or lost by a hunting or foraging party. As the gravel terraces adjacent to the alluvial floodplain of the rivers Till and Glen are thought to have supported year round Mesolithic occupation, the scarcity of recorded Mesolithic finds in the Kilham area probably reflects the lack of detailed research, rather than genuine absence of occupation.