Berners Hall, Woolverstone. IP9 1AR Thursday 5th May at 7.30 A talk by Professor Tristan Carter McMaster University The Earliest Farmers of the Shotley Peninsula: Digging the Freston Causewayed Enclosure Located between Potash and Turkey Farms, and bisected by the B1080, is the 8.55 hectare, 6000-year-old Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure of Freston. Discovered in 1969, protected as a scheduled monument in 1976, and unknown to many living on the peninsula, this massive earthwork was a formal gathering space and ceremonial centre for the region's first farming communities, agriculture and its attendant lifeways having been introduced from the continent a couple of centuries earlier. This talk introduces you to the site, and through drawing on the results of the 2019/21 excavations considers why the monument was constructed at Freston, when it was built, what happened and who gathered here, and what brings a Canadian research team to the site. FREE admission Refreshments Donations welcomed (To be shared between Friends of Woolverstone and the Causeway project) Book a place? Email: [email protected] Phone: 01473780009 or 07825708171