While excavating a site close to Buckingham, archaeologists came up a lovely Mesolithic stone mace head. Cotswold Archaeology completed the work as a component of the HS2 project.

The mace head is made of quartzite pebbles and measures about oval (105 mm x 74 mm x 40 mm) with a central hourglass opening (approximately 35mm-20mm in diameter). The mace head has light impact damage on both ends, which points to its past employment as a percussive instrument.

The modest wear at the narrow point of the central perforation shows that the item was hafted. The central perforation may have been produced by pecking, as seen by the small chip marks that surround it, rather than drilling.

These Mesolithic items adopt the shape of the raw material, unlike later Neolithic mace heads that are sculpted to achieve a certain shape. Similar pebble mace heads have been discovered in Britain, particularly at Oakhanger in Hampshire and Eton Rowing Lake in Berkshire, and they are believed to be Mesolithic in origin.

It is believed that Mesolithic hunter-gatherer activity was centered in resource-rich locations like woodlands and along watercourses, with the majority of the known sites being situated on drier, rising territory. The location of the site was on a River Great Ouse tributary.

In a post-medieval quarry fill that had obliterated a winding trench, the mace head was discovered. It's probable that this ditch was formerly a portion of a prehistoric ring ditch because the mace head came from a truncated internal deposit.

Two other ring ditches, possibly indicating Bronze Age round barrows, have been discovered nearby using aerial photography, and two additional ring ditches as well as Bronze Age cremation burials are known from the neighborhood.