Windmill Hill Culture

a Neolithic culture in southern England. The culture was discovered in 1925 near the town of Windmill Hill. Among the discoveries were the remains of a fortified town, including cattle enclosures, girded by three or four ditches, and encampments, flint mines, and long barrows with group burials (two to 25). The pottery is round-bottomed, ornamented with incised lines and with pits. Tools made of flint (axes, knives, end scrapers, sickle inserts, and arrowheads), grain mortars, axes made of antler, and bone awls were also found, as well as stone beads and articles made of chalk. The main occupations of the inhabitants were farming (wheat and barley) and stock raising (cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs). The origin of the Windmill Hill culture is linked with the Neolithic Cortaillod cultures of Western Europe.