Ashdown Forest contains a wealth of archeological features. Absence of ploughing, predominance of heathland and lack of building development have allowed archaeological sites to survive and remain visible. More than 570 such sites have been identified, including Bronze Age round barrows, Iron Age enclosures, prehistoric field systems, iron workings from Roman times onwards, the Pale, medieval and post-medieval pillow mounds for the rearing of rabbits, and a set of military kitchen mounds between Camp Hill and Nutley dating from 1793 that are among the only surviving ones in the United Kingdom. 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. The vast majority of finds however date from the Mesolithic (11,000-7,000 BP) and onwards into the modern era.
Cultural remains
Stone age
Occasional stone tools remain as evidence of an early culture.
Bronze age
Burial mounds, round barrows, are among the features still extant from the Bronze Age.
Iron age
The late pre-Roman Iron Age (100 BC to AD 43) saw a conspicuous reconfiguration of the settlement and economic geography of Sussex, of which one aspect was the disappearance of hill-forts from the South Downs (except Devil's Dyke) and the establishment of hill-forts in the High Weald, including one in Ashdown Forest at Garden Hill (see below). Three other hill-forts lie in close proximity at Philpots, Saxonbury and Dry Hill. The general consensus is that these hill-forts are associated with a more intensive exploitation of the iron resources of the Weald. This period also presents the first evidence for centralised ceramic production, with specialist pottery sites identified at Chelwood Gate and Horsted Keynes, both situated close to the Forest and ideally located to exploit the local potting clays. Elsewhere in Ashdown Forest there is evidence of Iron Age enclosures at Gills Lap, marked by a roundel of fir trees, and King's Standing, both situated on high hilltops. Another site, at Chelwood Gate, known as Danes Graves, shows evidence of late pre-Roman Iron Age iron working.
Garden Hill site
Garden Hill, situated on a hill spur south of Colemans Hatch Road, is Ashdown Forest's most important scheduled monument, containing both an Iron Age hill-fort and the remains of an important Romano-British iron-working centre. In 1972 archaeologists uncovered a small but complete 2nd century AD Romano-British stone-built bath-house. Subsequent excavations produced evidence of Neolithic, Bronze Age and early pre-Roman occupation of the hill-top and uncovered remains of a late pre-Roman Iron Age and Romano-British iron-working settlement of the 1st, 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD. This included pre-Roman round houses, a rectangular 2nd-century Roman timber villa to which the bath building was attached, and an almost complete pane of Roman window-glass that was later acquired by the British Museum. Both iron-making (ore roasting and smelting) and iron-working (forging) were conducted, but this is likely to have been small in scale. Later the industrial workings were levelled and replaced by the villa and other buildings of a non-industrial character, suggesting that the settlement may have operated through the 2nd century more as a managerial centre for other iron-working sites nearby, such as the small early 1st-century bloomeries at Pippingford Park and Cow Park before probably becoming abandoned by the mid 3rd century. Garden Hill lies within the Ministry of Defence's Pippingford Park military training area and is not open to the public.
Roman roads and pre-Roman trackways
The London to Lewes Way, one of three Roman roads that connected London with the important Wealden iron industry, crosses Ashdown Forest in a north-south direction. The road ran in a direct line from its junction with Watling Street at Peckham in London to the South Downs on the east side of Lewes, from where it connected with routes to the densely populated corn-growing areas of the South Downs and coastal plain, and possibly to ports trading with Roman-occupied Gaul. The main purpose of the road, apart from linking the corn-growing areas with London, was to open up Ashdown Forest and neighbouring iron-producing areas for the export of iron products to London and Gaul. Given the great importance of the iron industry to the Romans, it is likely that the road was built soon after the Roman occupation, not long after AD 100 or possibly earlier.