The valley of the Trent has long been regarded as 'a probable region of primary man', and the discovery of a Neolithic stone axe head and mace head gives us reason to believe that early man was at Barton during the period between 10,000 and 5,000 years B.C. The axe was of grey green stone, and both finds were considered to be of high status in the prehistoric period, no doubt taking many weeks of painstaking grinding and polishing to produce the intrinsic beauty such artefacts still possess today. Cropmarks to the south-west of the village suggest the remains of what may have been an Iron Age settlement consisting of thatched round houses, probably made of wood, wattle and mud. By the time this site was inhabited much of the parish would have been fields set about with acres of woodland and coppice. The people living here would have grown grain (wheat and barley) and would probably have kept oxen, sheep and pigs. Indeed, this may well have been the original small farming community from which the village evolved.