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Heywood and its Stone Age legacy
10/ 3/2003
THERE are signs that human activity was taking place in Heywood around 10,000 years ago.
Flints from the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) period - which lasted from around 8,300-3,200BC - have been found in Heywood, in the Cheesden Valley and Knowl Moor areas. All were discovered on high ground close to a water source, and all are quite small and suitable for use as arrowheads and the like.
According to the authors of a report on archaeological survey of Rochdale borough (which appeared in the Greater Manchester Archaeological Journal in 1985) it is likely that the flints were not left by early residents of Heywood, but rather by bands of hunters.
During the Neolithic area (New Stone Age), which took place between 3200 and 2000BC, people started to become farmers. The idea of settling in one place became more attractive; people took the first steps towards domesticating animals for food, and began to cultivate edible crops.
Although there is no solid evidence of any such settlements in Heywood, it does not mean that they didn't exist. Who knows, for example, what lies under the buildings of modern Heywood, or what was destroyed when they were being built.
Items dating back to the Bronze Age (2000 to 600BC) have also been found in Heywood. At Wind Hill in Ashworth, a flint knife, jet button and stone hammer were found in burial barrow, which was excavated by the Bury Archaeological Group between 1968 and 1972.
No actual graves were found, although there were signs of burials on the surface of the ground and some grave goods. It's likely that the barrow was created at the very start of the Bronze Age by the 'Beaker People' who were so called because of their custom of placing a beaker in graves.
A metal axe head, believed to date from later in the Bronze Age, was found by workmen digging out a reservoir on Ashworth Moor back in 1905. The original axe head is now in private hands, but Rochdale Museum has a replica of it.
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