Editing Ashdown Forest (section)

==Archaeology==
{{Main|The archaeology of Ashdown Forest}}
[[File:Ashdown Forest Roman Road.JPG|thumb|The ''agger'' of the London-Lewes Roman road, visible at Roman Road car park, Ashdown Forest.]]

Ashdown Forest is rich in archaeology: there are more than 570 archaeological sites, including Bronze Age round barrows, Iron Age enclosures, prehistoric field systems, Roman iron workings, the medieval pale, medieval and post-medieval pillow mounds for the rearing of rabbits, and remains of late 18th-century military kitchen mounds that are among the only surviving ones in the United Kingdom.<ref>Ashdown Forest Life, issue 8, Autumn/Winter 2009.</ref>

The earliest known trace of human activity in Ashdown Forest is a stone hand axe found near Gills Lap, which is thought to be about 50,000 years old.<ref>[http://www.ashdownforest.org/history/history_pre_roman.php Ashdown Forest] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125053342/http://www.ashdownforest.org/history/history_pre_roman.php |date=25 November 2010 }}</ref> The vast majority of finds date from the Mesolithic (10,000-4,000 BC) and onwards into the modern era.

The [[London to Lewes Way (Roman road)|London to Lewes Way]], one of three [[Roman roads in Britain|Roman roads]] that connected London with the important [[Wealden iron industry]], crosses Ashdown Forest in a north–south direction, and would have been used to transport iron products from the forest to London and the coast. The [[Agger (ancient Rome)|agger]] of the road, whose foundations include iron slag, can be seen at Roman Road car park.