# The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain/Chapter 23

CHAPTER XXIII.
IMPLEMENTS OF THE RIVER-DRIFT PERIOD.
In treating of the implements belonging to the Palæolithic Period, and found in the ancient freshwater or river drifts in Britain, I propose first to give a slight sketch of the nature of the discoveries which have been made in this particular field of archæology; then to furnish some details concerning the localities where implements have been found, and the character of the containing beds; next, to offer a few remarks on the shape and possible uses of the various forms of implements; and, finally, to consider the evidence of their antiquity.
So much has already been written in England, as well as on the Continent, as to the history of these most curious discoveries, that a very succinct account of them will here suffice. It was in the year 1847, that M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, called attention to the finding of flint instruments fashioned by the hand of man, in the pits worked for sand and gravel, in the neighbourhood of that town. They occurred in such positions, and at such a depth below the surface, as to force upon him the conclusion that they were of the same date as the containing beds, which he regarded as of diluvial origin, or as monuments of a universal Deluge. In 1855, Dr. Rigollot, of Amiens, also published an account of the discovery of flint implements at St. Acheul, near Amiens, in a drift enclosing the remains of extinct animals, and at a depth of 10 feet or more from the surface. From causes into ​which it is not necessary to enter, these discoveries were regarded with distrust in France, and were very far from being generally accepted by the geologists and antiquaries of that country.
In the autumn of 1858, however, that distinguished palæontologist, the late Dr. Hugh Falconer, F.R.S., visited Abbeville, in order to see M. Boucher de Perthes's collection, and became "satisfied that there was a great deal of fair presumptive evidence in favour of many of his speculations regarding the remote antiquity of these industrial objects, and their association with animals now extinct." Acting on Dr. Falconer's suggestion, the late Sir Joseph Prestwich, F.R.S,, whose extensive and accurate researches had placed him in the first rank of English geologists, visited Abbeville and Amiens, in April, 1859; where I, on his invitation, had the good fortune to join him. We examined the local collections of flint implements and the beds in which they were said to have been found; and, in addition to being perfectly satisfied with the evidence adduced as to the nature of the discoveries, we had the crowning satisfaction of seeing one of the worked flints still in situ in its undisturbed matrix of gravel, at a depth of 17 feet from the original surface of the ground.
I may add that on March 26th, 1875, I dug out from the gravel, in a pit close to the seminary at Saint Acheul, a pointed implement at a depth of 10 feet 10 inches from the surface.
From the day on which Sir Joseph Prestwich gave an account to the Royal Society, of the results of his visit to the Valley of the Somme, the authenticity of the discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes and Dr. Rigollot was established; and they were almost immediately followed by numerous others of the same character, both in France and England.
Before proceeding to describe the discoveries made in this country, it will be well to say a few words as to some others of those which have been made on the continent of Europe. In France such discoveries have been so abundant that it would be an almost hopeless task to enumerate the whole of them, I must, therefore, content myself by calling attention to a few only; and, moreover, shall not overburden my pages with references. One of the earliest discoveries was made by M. Vincent at Troyes (Aube), where, in 1850, at a depth of 3 metres, he found an ​ovoid implement, but most of the recent finds date subsequently to 1859. Those made at Chelles (Seine et Marne) deserve especial mention, inasmuch as M. Gabriel de Mortillet, regarding the deposits at that place as being more of one and the same age than those at St. Acheul, has termed his oldest stage of the Palæolithic Period Chelléen rather than Acheuléen. He places the Moustérien next, but in some respects the subdivision is unsatisfactory. The Elephas antiquus occurs at Chelles, but at Tilloux (Charente) E. meridionalis, E. antiquus, and E. primigenius all occur together with well-marked palæolithic implements of usual types. At Paris itself, in the gravels of the valley of the Seine, numerous implements have been found, as well as lower down the valley at Sotteville, near Rouen. At Argues, near Dieppe, Saint Saen, and Bully, near Neufchâtel, they have also occurred. At Grand Morin (Seine et Marne) and Quiévy, (Nord),fine specimens have been found. At the Bois du Rocher, near Dinan, in the Côtes du Nord, numerous implements, mostly small and of fine-grained quartzite occur—I found eight there myself in 1876—and near Toulouse many larger and coarser examples chipped out of quartzite pebbles. I have also implements from Chelles made of a kind of quartzite. Of other localities in the north of France I may mention Guînes and Sangatte, near Calais; Montguillain and other spots near Beauvais; Thenay and Thézy, near Amiens, and Vaudricourt, near Béthune. In the district of the Loire I have found implements in the gravels of Marboué, near Châteaudun, and at Vendôme. Further south in Poitou they are abundant on the surface at Coussay-les-Bois and other places near Leugny. They have also been found in some abundance near Sens (Yonne), and occur in Dordogne, the Mâconnais and Champagne, the departments of Corrèze, Indre et Loire, Nièvre, and indeed over the greater part of France.
In Belgium several discoveries have been made, notably at Curange and Mesvin.
​To the east, in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Russia, such discoveries, though rare, seem to be not entirely unknown. Further evidence, however, is desirable.
In Italy various implements, presumed to be of Palæolithic age, have been found in the gravels of the Tiber, but they are nearly all rude flakes. One, however, of ovate form, has been found near Gabbiano, in the Abruzzo.
Other well-defined implements have been found near Perugia, in the Imolese, Ceppagna (Molise), and elsewhere.
In the gravels of the valley of the Manzanares, at San Isidro, near Madrid, palæolithic implements of the usual types have been found, as well as some of a wedge shape, unlike the ordinary European types, but similar to one of the Madras forms. They are associated with the remains of an elephant, probably E. antiquus. The Quaternary beds at San Isidro are nearly 200 feet above the level of the existing river, and the implements that they contain are varied in character, some chipped out of porphyry and other old rocks, being very rude in fabric, while others of flint are as dexterously made as any of the ordinary specimens from St. Acheul. The first discovery made there was by M. Louis Lartet. I have on several occasions visited the spot. Diagrammatic sections of the valley have been given by Prof. A. Gaudry and M. E. Cartailhac. Messrs. Siret mention several other localities in Spain that have yielded palæolithic implements.
In Portugal also, both in gravels and in caves, such implements have been found, and a good ovate specimen, made of quartz, from Leiria, near Lisbon, has been figured by Cartailhac.
In Greece some almond-shaped implements, of the true ​palæolithic type, are said to have been discovered in beds of sand near Megalopolis, with bones of the great pachyderms.
Returning to this country and to the year 1859, I may observe that it turned out on examination that more than one such discovery as those of Abbeville and Amiens had already been recorded, and that flint implements of similar types to the French had been found in the gravels of London at the close of the seventeenth century, and in the brick-earth of Hoxne, in Suffolk, at the close of the eighteenth, and were still preserved in the British Museum, and in that of the Society of Antiquaries.
During the thirty-eight years that have elapsed since renewed and careful attention was called to these implements, numerous other discoveries have taken place in various parts of England of instruments of analogous forms in beds of gravel, sand, and clay, for the most part on the slopes of our existing river valleys, though in some instances at considerable distances from any stream of water, and occasionally not thus embedded, but lying on the surface of the ground. Several of these discoveries have been made in localities where, from the nature of the deposits, it had already been suggested by the late Sir Joseph Prestwich and myself that implements would probably be found; and others have resulted from workmen, who had been trained to search for the implements in gravel, having migrated to new pits, where also their search has proved successful. In not a few instances the researches for such evidence of the antiquity of man have been carried on by fully qualified observers. It is, however, needless here to trace the causes and order of the discoveries, and I therefore propose to treat them in geographical, and not chronological, sequence. In so doing it will be most convenient to arrange them in accordance with the river systems in connection with which the gravels were deposited, wherein for the most part the implements have been found.
The district of which, following the order formerly adopted, it seems convenient first to treat, is the basin of the river Ouse and its tributaries, comprising, according to the Ordnance Survey, an area of 2,607 square miles. Beginning in the west of this district, I may mention the finding by Mr. Worthington G. Smith, F.L.S., of several implements near one of the sources of the Ouse, a little to the north of Leighton Buzzard. Through his kindness I possess a pointed, thick and deeply-stained implement, found at Bossington, about a mile north of Leighton. A more important scene of discoveries of this kind is the neighbourhood of Bedford, where the late Mr. James ​Wyatt, F.G.S., obtained specimens so early as April, 1861, since which time considerable numbers have been found. The pit in which they first occurred is one near Biddenham, in which I had, some few years before, discovered freshwater and land shells, and which I had, previously to Mr. Wyatt's discovery, already visited with him in the expectation of finding flint implements in the gravel. The other localities in the immediate neighbourhood of Bedford where palæolithic implements have been found, are Harrowden, Cardington, Kempston, Summerhouse Hill, and Honey Hill, all within a radius of four miles.
The Ouse near Bedford winds considerably in its course, which has in all probability much changed at different periods, the valley through which the river now passes being of great width. As instances of its changes even within historical times, it may be mentioned that the chapel in which Offa, King of Mercia, was interred, is said to have been washed away by the Ouse; and in the time of Richard II. its course was so much altered, near Harrold, that the river is recorded to have ceased flowing, and its channel to have remained dry, for three miles.
Fig 414.—Biddenham, Bedford. 1/1
​Pupa, Planorbis, Limnæa, Ancylus, Zua, and Unio. Of these the Hydrobia (marginata) has never been found alive in this country.
Mammalian remains also occur in the gravel, principally towards its base. Including other localities in the neighbourhood of Bedford, besides those already mentioned, but where the gravel is of the same character, remains of the following animals have been found: Ursus spelæus, Cervus tarandus, Cervus elaphus, Bos primigenius, Bison priscus, Hippopotamus major, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Rhinoceros megarhinus, Elephas antiquus, Elephas primigenius, Equus, and Hyæna spelæa.
Fig. 415.—Biddenham, Bedford 1/1
I have already given in the Archæologia full-size figures of two of the implements from the Biddenham pit, which are here reproduced.
Fig. 414, though worked to a wedge-like point, is very massive, weighing something over 11/2 lb. The butt-end has been roughly
Fig. 416.—Biddenham, Bedford. 1/2
Fig. 417.—Biddenham, Bedford. 1/2
chipped into form, and has some sharp projections left upon it, so that it can hardly have been intended to be simply held in the hand when ​used, but was either mounted in some manner, or else some means were adopted for protecting the hand against its asperities. I have already called attention to its resemblance to an implement from Kent's Cavern, Fig. 388a.
The second specimen, Fig. 415, still shows the natural crust of the flint at its truncated end, and is well adapted for being held in the hand when used.
Other specimens from the Biddenham Pit are engraved on the scale of one-half linear measure in Figs. 416 to 418.
The whole, with the exception of Fig. 417, were in the collection of the late Mr. Wyatt.
Fig. 416 is of ochreous cherty flint, symmetrically chipped, and showing a portion of the original crust of the flint at the base. Its angles are sharp, and not water-worn. In character it much resembles many of the implements from the valley of the Little Ouse, and from St. Acheul, near Amiens.
The original of Fig. 417 is in my own collection, having been kindly presented to me by Mr. Wyatt. As will be seen, it is remarkably thick at the butt, which is somewhat battered, almost as if the instrument had been used as a wedge. On a part of the butt is a portion of the white crust of the flint, which is somewhat striated, and suggestive of the block of flint from which the implement was fashioned having been derived from some Glacial deposit.
Fig. 418.—Biddenham, Bedford. 1/2
Fig. 418 represents a very curious form of implement made from a part of a sub-cylindrical nodule of flint, and chipped to a rounded point at one end, and truncated at the other, where the original fractured surface of the flint is left intact. The angles at the pointed end are but little worn.
Implements of various other forms and sizes have been found in the gravels near Bedford, but in character they so closely correspond with those found in other parts of England, and in France, that it seems needless to particularize them. One of them, however, in my own collection, 101/4 inches long by 41/4 inches wide, tongue-like in character, but of a long ovate shape, deserves special mention. It was found at Biddenham. The flat ovate, or oval type, is there of extremely rare occurrence.
I have numerous other specimens from the Bedford gravels, principally from Kempston, and others exist in various public and private collections. Like the mammalian remains, they occur for the most part towards the base of the gravel, but occasionally at higher levels in the beds. Besides the more highly wrought instruments, knife-like flakes of flint have been found, some of them presenting ​evidence of use upon their edges. A few flakes trimmed at the end into scraper-like form have also been discovered.
At Tempsford, some seven or eight miles below Bedford, the river Ouse is joined by the small river Ivel, a branch of which, the Hiz, rises from the Chalk escarpment near Hitchin, and joins the Ivel at Langford. About two miles south of the junction of these two streams, near Henlow, Bedfordshire, Mr. F. J. Bennett, of the Geological Survey, found in 1868 a flint implement of palæolithic type, not indeed in gravel, but lying on the surface. It is 4 inches long and 21/2 broad, and of the same general character as that from Icklingham, Fig. 420, but rather more acutely pointed at each end. It is ochreous on one face, and grey black on the other, and not improbably may have been derived from some gravelly bed. I remarked in 1872 that this discovery seemed to place the Ivel and Hiz among the rivers, in the valley-gravels of which, farther search would probably be rewarded.
Since then at Ickleford, near Hitchin, numerous implements, some of them much water-worn, have been found by Mr. Frank Latchmore and others in gravels lying in the valley of the Hiz. I have also an acutely-pointed specimen from Bearton Green, a little to the north of Hitchin, in an angle between the rivers Oughton and Hiz.
But the most important discoveries are those which have been made a short distance to the south of the town of Hitchin. There, near the summit of a hill cut off by valleys on three sides from higher land, a brickfield has been worked for some years by Mr. A. Ransom. Although attention was called to the discovery in 1877, the whole circumstances of the case are only now being thoroughly worked out. At that time the section exposed was about 20 feet in depth, of reddish brick-earth with numerous small angular fragments of flint throughout. In places there were seams in which flints were more abundant. With them were a few quartz and quartzite pebbles. Above one seam, about 9 feet from the surface, was a layer of carbonaceous matter. The implements, which are of various forms, both ovate, like Pl. II., No. 17-19, and pointed, like Pl. I., No. 5-7, are said to occur in the brick-earth, but not in the alluvial beds below. They are mostly ochreous, but some are white. I have a hammer-stone found with them which is made of an almost cylindrical portion of a nodule of flint about 41/4 inches long, truncated at each end; the edges round both ends are much battered. It was probably used in the manufacture of the other implements; a hammer of the same kind was found at Little Thurrock. In October, 1877, a well was sunk at the bottom of the pit showing—
| | ft. | in. |
| (a) Red loam with a few quartz pebbles and flints, about | 4 | 0 |
| (b) White very sandy loam with freshwater shells | 5 | 6 |
| (c) Dark greenish-brown loam with numerous shells and vegetable remains, among them Bythinia, Planorbis and Limnæa; also elytra of beetles, about | 10 | 6 |
| | 20 | 0 |
​Mammalian remains are reported to have been found in the argillaceous beds at Hitchin, including bear, elephant, and rhinoceros.
In Fig. 418a is shown a small shoe-shaped implement from the brick-earth at Hitchin, on which a considerable amount of the crust of the original nodule of flint from which it was made still remains.
Fig. 418a.—Hitchin. 1/2
At the Folly Pit, about half a mile south and at a lower level, a section was shown in 1877 of about 18 feet of Glacial Drift, with large rounded pebbles of different rocks, false-bedded sands, &c. On an eroded surface of sands and gravels of the Glacial Series was brick-earth extending in the direction of Mr. Ransom's pit. At one spot white marly sand-like beds, full of freshwater shells, were visible. The brick-earth at Hitchin, like that at Hoxne, seems to have been deposited in what were locally Post-Glacial times.
A detailed examination of the spot has recently been carried out by Mr. Clement Reid, F.G.S., who finds that the alluvial deposits beneath the palæolithic brick-earth fill a deep channel and contain a temperate flora, including such trees as the oak, ash, cornel, elder, and alder. Towards the margin of the channel, in at least one place, the Chalky Boulder Clay occurs beneath the ancient alluvial and palæolithic strata. The succession corresponds closely with that found at Hoxne.
​At Biggleswade, farther down the valley of the Ivel, a few palæolithic implements have been procured from the railway ballast-pit.
Northwards of Hitchin a flint flake has been found in the gravel of the Ouse at Hartford, near Huntingdon, together with remains of Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus. I have also a well-shaped ochreous pointed implement (5 inches) found at Abbot's Ripton, 31/2 miles north of Huntingdon, in 1896, as well as one like Fig. 457 (53/4 inches) from gravel at Chatteris, Cambs.
Proceeding eastward, the next important affluent of the Ouse which is met with, is the Cam, the gravels along the valley of which present in various places characters analogous with those near Bedford. Numerous mammalian remains of the same Quaternary fauna have been found along its course, especially at Barnwell and Chesterton, near Cambridge, where also land and freshwater shells occur in abundance. I have also found them in a pit near Littlebury, a few miles from Saffron Walden.
From Quendon, Essex, about 5 miles south of Saffron Walden, and in the valley of the Cam, Mr. C. K. Probert, of Newport, Bishop Stortford, obtained a magnificent sharp-pointed implement with the sides curved outwards, 8 inches in length. It lay in sandy drift in a pit about 12 feet deep.
In the publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society is a paper by the late Prof. Chas. C. Babington, F.R.S., "On a flint hammer found near Burwell." It is described as a pointed implement, very similar to those found at Hoxne and Amiens, as represented in Phil. Trans., 1860, Pl. XIV., 6 and 8. It was not found in situ, nor in gravel, but is said to have come from a mill used for cleaning coprolites, where it had been well washed with them. If it be the specimen that I have seen in the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, I fear it is a forgery. Another worked flint, also of rather uncertain origin, but perfectly genuine, and having all the characteristics of belonging to the River-drift, was found in 1862 on a heap of gravel, near Cambridge, by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., who kindly placed it in my collection. It is a thick polygonal flake, about 3 inches long and 1 inch broad at the base, tapering to the point, which is broken off. Its surface is stained all over of a deep ochreous colour, its angles are slightly water-worn, and the edges worn away, either by friction among other stones in the gravel, or by use. In the Woodwardian Museum is another flake, apparently of palæolithic date, which was found in gravel near the Cambridge Observatory. The Rev. Osmond Fisher, F.G.S., possesses an implement in form and character much like Fig. 470, from Highfield, Salisbury, which was found on a heap of gravel brought from Chesterton. Other discoveries have confirmed this evidence of the presence of palæolithic implements in the gravels of the valley of the Cam.
Mr. A. F. Griffith in 1878 described a fine implement from the Barnwell gravels (63/4 inches) in form and size almost identical with ​Fig. 414. Others have been found in gravel from the Observatory Hill, Cambridge, and from Chesterton. Another tongue-shaped implement from the plateau near Upper Hare Park, Cambridge, has been found by Mr. M. C. Hughes.
I may add that in the gravel at Barnwell, at a depth of 12 feet, and associated with remains of elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, was found in 1862, a portion of a rib-bone like that of an elephant, showing at one end "numerous cut surfaces, evidently made with some sharp instrument used by a powerful hand." I have not seen the specimen, but Mr. H. Seeley, F.R.S., who records the fact, has "no doubt that the whittling is as old as the bone." The Corbicula fluminalis, Hydrobia marginata, and Unio rhomboideus are among the shells which are found in the River-drift of Barnwell, but are no longer living in England.
I have a number of implements, principally of ovate form, which are said to have been found in the neighbourhood of Bottisham, but I am not sure as to the exact locality. I believe them to have come from gravel-pits about a mile to the north of Six Mile Bottom Station.
In gravel at Kennett Station, about 5 miles north-east by east of Newmarket, but still in Cambridgeshire, several specimens have been found by Mr. Arthur G. Wright and others.
I have a much-worn flat ovate specimen from Herringswell, three miles to the north of Kentford Station.
Implements occur, though rarely, at the base of the peat in the Fen country, below Cambridge. I have a small ovate specimen (31/4 inches) from Swaffham Fen. It is of black flint with the surface eroded as if a portion of its substance had been dissolved away. A much larger implement (6 inches) from Soham Fen is also black, but its surface is uninjured.
Fig. 419.—Maynewater Lane, Bury St. Edmunds. 1/2
The principal places in the valley of the Lark, where palæolithic implements have been found, are in the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds, Icklingham, and Mildenhall. The first specimen from the River-drift at Bury St. Edmunds was obtained by Mr. Trigg in gravel at a low level, near the ruined Gatehouse of St. Saviour's Hospital, in October, 1862; since which time numerous other specimens have been discovered, principally through his agency. Several were found in the excavations made for the drainage of the southern part of the town in 1864—one elongated oval implement having been discovered in Botolph's Lane; and three others, varying in form, in Maynewater Lane, where also a flake was found. That here engraved as Fig. 419 is from this latter locality, and was found at a depth of 14 feet in a bed of loamy, sub-angular gravel, underlying a deposit of fine grey loam 6 feet thick, containing scales of fish, and abundant remains of Anodonta and Bythinia. It is now deposited in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury. Its edges are sharp and unworn, and its colour black, with ochreous spots. Others, since discovered, are of even finer workmanship. One in my collection is a much ruder specimen, though of nearly similar general form, which was found in the South Gate in 1869. Several have been found in Westgate and St. Andrew's Streets, and in Newton Road. The greatest number of implements found at Bury have, however, come from what is known as the Grindle Pit, a short distance to the south-east of the town, and on the summit and western slope of a tongue of land between the Linnet and the Lark. Some of them occurred in a dark, stiff, rather argillaceous gravel, composed mainly of sub-angular flints, but also containing a small proportion of the pebbles of the older rocks, derived from Glacial ​deposits. This gravel is from 2 to 3 feet in thickness, and underlies a stratum of red brick-earth from 2 to 6 feet thick, which is again, in places, surmounted by sands and clay with angular flints about 4 feet in thickness, on which the surface soil reposes. This was the section exhibited in 1865, but the beds are very irregular, and the character of the section exposed in the pit varies considerably from time to time, as material is removed. In places the Drift-beds are faulted, as if by the giving way of the subjacent beds.
Fig. 419a—Grindle Pit, Bury St. Edmunds. 1/2
A beautiful and absolutely perfect specimen from this pit is shown in Fig. 419a. It was found in a black vein in the lower loamy bed, on February 4th, 1870. Though the implement has been most skilfully chipped, the edge is not in one plane, but when looked at sideways, shows an ogival curve. The regular contour is partly due to secondary working, but the edge is as sharp as on the day when the instrument was made. Several others of almost the same form, though not quite so delicately fashioned, came from the same pit, and may have been made by the same hands.
I have a fine pointed implement, (51/2 inches), also from the Grindle Pit. Another, ovate, is 7 inches in length.
A remarkably fine palæolithic flake from Thingoe Hill, Bury St. Edmunds, is shown in Fig. 419b. It is water-worn, and much resembles some from the low-level gravels at Montiers, near Amiens, and Montguillain, near Beauvais. It belongs, of course, to a much earlier period than the mound in, on, or near which it was found.
As already observed, remains of shells, and some scales of fish, were found in the Drift-beds during the drainage works, as also some ​mammalian remains. They were, however, scarce. Higher up the valley by about three miles, there have been found in a pit at Sicklesmere, remains of Rhinoceros tichorhinus and Elephas primigenius; and, in another pit, elephant remains; specimens of all of which are now preserved in the Bury Museum. Mr. Trigg obtained several well-wrought implements from the brick-earth of Sicklesmere, near Nowton, which there overlies the Boulder Clay; and has also found examples in the gravels of the valley of the Kent, another small affluent of the Ouse.
Fig. 419b.—Bury St. Edmunds. 1/2
One of these Nowton specimens is shown in Fig. 419c. It is broad and kite-shaped in form and has weathered to a creamy white. In type it approaches Fig. 435, from Santon Downham. Some remarkably fine implements, principally ovate, have been found at Westley, about two miles west of Bury, and at Fornham All Saints, two miles to the north; and I have a pointed one from the Beeches Pit, West Stow, five miles to the north-west, and nearer Icklingham. It was in one of the pits at Westley, eroded in the old chalk surface and filled with loam, that Mr. Trigg discovered portions of a human skull which he described to the Anthropological Institute. In other pits at ​the same spot were molars of Elephas primigenius, and the chopper-like instrument shown in Fig. 419d.
Fig. 419c.—Nowton, near Bury St. Edmunds. 1/2
In the valley of the Lark, about seven miles down from Bury, lies the village of Icklingham, in the neighbourhood of which numerous remains belonging to the Roman and Saxon Periods have been found, but where also relics belonging to both the Neolithic and Palæolithic Periods abound. Many of the latter have been discovered in the gravel of Rampart Hill, about a mile to the south-east of Icklingham, and nearer to Bury; but still more numerous specimens have now for many years also been found in the gravel at Warren Hill—sometimes termed the Three Hills—about two miles on the other side of Icklingham, and midway between that place and Mildenhall. A section across the valley of the Lark, near Icklingham, has been given by Sir Joseph Prestwich. The valley, which is excavated in the chalk, is in its lower part covered by recent alluvial deposits, but on the slopes of its northern side, the chalk is covered with sands and gravels belonging to the Glacial Series, which are again overlain by the Boulder Clay. The gravel both at Rampart Hill and Warren Hill is of a different character from that belonging to the Glacial Series, though of course containing a number of the silicious pebbles from the conglomerate beds of the New Red Sandstone, and other pebbles of the older rocks derived from the Glacial Drift. It is for the most part composed of sub-angular flints in an ochreous sandy matrix, and is spread out in irregular beds interstratified with seams of sand. At Warren Hill there are great numbers of quartzite pebbles, as well as ​very many formed from rolled chalk, mixed with the other constituents. These are less abundant in the upper part of the deposit, which is there of considerable thickness. I am not aware of the exact levels having been taken at either place, but the surface of the ground is probably from 40 to 50 feet above the level of the river. The gravel beds are in places as much as 14 or 15 feet in thickness. Mammalian remains are scarce, but teeth and portions of tusk of Elephas primigenius have been found at Rampart Hill, and the core of the horn of an ox, and teeth of horse, and bones and teeth of elephant, at Warren Hill.
Fig. 419d.—Westley, near Bury St. Edmunds. 1/2
Up to the present time the search for remains of testacea in these beds has proved unsuccessful.
Not only have the worked flints been discovered in considerable numbers, but Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., has found in the gravel at Warren Hill, several quartzite pebbles bearing evident marks of ​abrasion and bruising at the ends, such as may have resulted from their having been in use as hammer-stones, either for chipping out the flint implements or for other purposes. He also obtained an ovate lanceolate implement from this spot, 43/4 inches in length, and formed from a quartzite pebble, the original surface of which is still preserved over nearly the whole extent of one of the faces.
Examples of the Icklingham implements are given in Figs. 420 to 424.
Fig. 420.—Rampart Hill, Icklingham. 1/2
The finer of the two, of which mention has already been made as having formed part of the collection of the late Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, is now in my own, and is shown in Fig. 420. It is more convex on one face than the other, and a portion of the butt presents an almost scraper-like appearance. The angles formed by the facets are slightly worn, and the surface of the flint has been much altered in character, having become nearly white, and quite lustrous. This alteration in structure is almost universal with the Icklingham implements, though in many cases they are ochreous instead of white, and not unfrequently the discoloration is only partial, giving them a dappled appearance. In many specimens the angles are much water-worn.
The original of Fig. 421 is in the Blackmore Museum, and is of ​dark brown lustrous flint, almost equally convex on both faces, and of very regular elliptical form. In most cases the outline approximates more to that of Fig. 467. These thin, flattened, oval, and almond-shaped, or ovate, implements seem, as Mr. Trigg has pointed out, to predominate at Icklingham. Those of oval form are especially abundant at Warren Hill.
Fig. 421.—Icklingham. 1/2
Fig. 422.—Icklingham. 1/2
Many of ruder character, however, also occur, one of which, in my own collection, is shown in Fig. 422. It approaches more nearly in form to some of the roughly chipped instruments of the Surface period, such as Fig. 16, than do most of the implements from the River-drift.
One of the finest specimens hitherto found in this country is that shown in Fig. 423, from the original in the Blackmore Museum. It is of dark ochreous flint, with the surface considerably decomposed, and the angles but little worn. In the same collection is another Icklingham specimen, in form like that from Thetford, Fig. 427, but 9 inches long and 41/2 wide.
Besides the more finished implements, a few flakes occur in the Icklingham gravels. Some of these have been chipped all round the periphery by blows administered on the flat face, thus producing a bevelled edge. One such, from Warren Hill, in my own collection, somewhat resembles the implement from Reculver, Fig. 461. It is, however, narrower ​in its proportions, being 41/2 inches long and 23/8 broad. It has been formed from an external flake, and has been carefully trimmed all round into an almost perfect oval form, the butt alone having been left untrimmed for about half-an-inch in width. A small part of the other rounded and scraper-like end has been broken off in ancient times. Others are wider in their proportions though not so symmetrically worked. The trimmed flake, shown in Fig. 424, is in my own collection, and at its rounded end is very scraper-like in character. A very large flake, rounded into a broad scraper, and about 5 inches in diameter, was found by myself at Warren Hill, and is now in the Christy Collection.
Fig. 423.—Icklingham.
​Three-quarters of a mile to the north of the Warren Hill pits, and on the same ridge, but at a rather higher level, is High or Warren Lodge, distant about two miles from Mildenhall. To the south of this house, and by the side of the Thetford road, is a small pit on the slope of the hill, where, in the process of digging clay for brick-making, a considerable number of worked flints have been obtained, many of which passed into the collection formed by Canon Greenwell, who has furnished me with particulars of the discovery. I have also visited the spot. The clay or brick-earth is of a reddish hue, and rests upon a chalky Boulder Clay, which is exposed farther up the hill. It ranges in thickness from about 4 to 6 feet; and above it are sands and gravel, the latter varying in thickness from about 2 to 6 feet, and of much the same character as that of the Warren Hill pits, but containing far less chalk. The sand occasionally comes down in pipes or pockets into the clay, and some of the worked flints occur in it, as well as in the clay. Many of these are merely roughly-chipped splinters, but several well-wrought forms have also been found.
| Fig. 424.—Icklingham. 1/2 | Fig. 425.—High Lodge. 1/2 |
Among them is an oval implement of a common River-drift type, 41/2 inches long, which, with three or four others of the same kind, was found in the upper sands and gravel. From the clay itself are several large side-scrapers, or choppers, made from broad flakes, 4 or 5 inches long, and in form similar to the specimen from Santon Downham, Fig. 437, and of the same character as the implements from the cave of Le Moustier. Besides these, there are several other large flakes worked along the edge into side-scrapers, and presenting a Le Moustier form. Another is like that from Thetford, Fig. 431, and worked along both edges. Even external flakes have been utilized; one of these, 4 inches long, having been neatly worked at one end ​into a segmental edge. Another large implement, 51/2 inches long and 3 inches broad, is ovate-lanceolate in form, flat on one face, and worked to a sharp edge all round. Several others have been found of the same type. I have a considerable number from the Trigg collection.
One of the most beautifully formed of these implements from High Lodge Hill is shown in Fig. 425. It has been made from a broad, flat truncated flake, with a well-marked cone of percussion. The two sides have been carefully trimmed to a curved edge, by secondary chipping, and the edge itself has been finished by a subsequent process of finer chipping. The angles where the truncated chisel-like end joins the sides have also been retouched, but a portion of the sharp edge is left in its original condition. The edge formed by the outer face of the flake with its flat butt-end has also been re-chipped, and in one place appears to have been bruised by an unskilful blow. The workmanship generally is of a finer and neater character than is usual on the implements found in the river gravels. In form and character this instrument is remarkably similar to some of those found in the cave of Le Moustier in the Dordogne.
| Fig. 426.—High Lodge.1/1 | Fig. 426a.—High Lodge.1/2 |
Others, again, resemble the scrapers from the surface and the caves. One of these is engraved full size in Fig. 426. The edge is more acute than usual with scrapers, perhaps in consequence of the curvature of the inner face of the flake from which it was made.
Another example with a straight terminal edge at an angle of 80° to the side is shown on the scale of one half in Fig. 426a.
The flint of the High Lodge implements is but little altered in character, but has either remained black or has been stained of a deep brown; the angles and edges being still as sharp as the day when they were formed. In this respect they resemble the worked flints from the brick-earth of Hoxne. Those from the brick-earth of the valley of the Somme are usually quite white and porcellanous.
​I have seen fragments of a molar of Elephas, probably primigenius, from the clay at this spot, and also a bone of a ruminant, probably Cervus megaceros.
As will subsequently be seen, there appears some reason for believing that at a remote period, the River Lark took a northerly, instead of a north-westerly, course from the neighbourhood of Mildenhall, and thus joined the Little Ouse instead of the Ouse itself; so that this pit may possibly be connected with the old channel of the stream. On the slope of the hill to the east of Eriswell is gravel of much the same character as that at Warren Hill, but in which as yet few implements have been found. I have, however, one of ovate form from Holywell Row, near Eriswell, and another, not unlike Fig. 471, from the surface at Cardwell, about three miles farther north. To the east of Lakenheath, still farther to the north, is an isolated hill, near Maid's Cross, capped with gravel, in which flint implements have been found. It will be best to describe this spot when treating of the discoveries that have been made in the valley of the Little Ouse.
The source of this stream and that of the Waveney may be regarded as one, inasmuch as both take their rise in a fen crossed by the road at Lopham Ford; the one river running east, and the other west, of the road. By the time it reaches Thetford, however, a distance of about 12 miles, the Little Ouse has been joined by the Ixworth stream and the Thet, so that the area of ground drained by it is considerably more than would at first sight appear probable, being upwards of 200 square miles. With the exception of a broad flint flake, found by Mr. Trigg at Santon Downham, the first discovery of flint implements in the gravels of the Little Ouse was made in 1865 at Redhill, near Thetford, by a labourer from Icklingham, who had been trained to search for implements in the gravel pits in his own parish. These specimens he brought to Mr. Trigg, who subsequently obtained others at Whitehill, farther down the valley on the same—or Norfolk—side of the river; and on my visiting the spot with him in December, 1865, Mr. Trigg found in my presence a well-formed pointed implement in some gravel at Santon Downham, on the opposite—or Suffolk—side. Since then the discoveries have extended farther down the valley, and numerous implements have been found at several localities in the neighbourhood of Brandon, and at Shrub Hill, in the parish of Feltwell, Norfolk.
​In June, 1866, the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., who had long carried on investigations in the district, communicated a paper to the Geological Society on the subject of the discoveries at Thetford, and again in April, 1869, a second paper on the discoveries of flint implements in Norfolk and Suffolk, with some observations on the theories accounting for their distribution, on which I shall have to make some comments hereafter.
The highest point up the valley of the Little Ouse at which, up to the present time, flint implements have been discovered in the gravel on its slopes, is Redhill, on the Norfolk side of the river, about a mile north-west of Thetford. The gravel at this place is coarse in character, and consists principally of sub-angular flints, some of large size, mixed with a few pebbles derived from beds of the Glacial series, and deposited in a red sandy matrix. It forms a terrace running nearly parallel with the present stream, and ranging from about 12 feet to nearly 40 feet above its level. In places, the gravel is from 12 to 16 feet in thickness, the largest stones, as usual, occurring towards its base, in which part of the gravel the greater number, but by no means all, of the flint implements occur, as some are dispersed throughout the whole thickness of the mass. Occasionally they have been found in pipes of gravel, let down into the chalk by means of water charged with carbonic acid eroding its upper surface. Sandy seams are, as usual, interbedded with the gravel; and in one of these, about 10 feet below the surface, I found shells of Helix, Bythinia, Cyclas, Pisidium, Ancylus, and Succinea, Of mammalian remains, those of Elephas primigenius, ox, horse, and stag have occurred.
A very large number of implements have been found in the gravel at Redhill, of which specimens exist in the Christy Collection, the Blackmore Museum, and in numerous private collections. Those selected for engraving here, are all in my own possession.
Fig. 427.—Redhill, Thetford. 1/2
Fig. 427 shows a remarkably fine specimen, stained all over of a deep ochreous red, though slightly mottled, owing to the original structure of the flint from which it was chipped. The angles are to a small extent waterworn. On what is in the figure the left side of the base, a portion of the original crust of the flint has been left, so as to form a protuberance at that part, instead of the edge being continued all round the instrument. This protuberance is well adapted to fit into the hand, like that of the Picts' knife, described at page 345, so that this may have been a cutting tool intended to be grasped. I have another specimen of nearly the same size, and with the same protuberance, from Santon Downham, and one of the implements from Southampton presents the same feature, which, indeed, is not unusual. A flat surface is frequently left on the sides of the ovate ​implements in or about the same position. This flat space has been referred to by the late Mr. Flower, who considered it intended to receive the thumb of the right hand, and not to go against the palm or the fore-finger, as suggested by myself long ago.
Fig. 428—Redhill, Thetford. 1/2
Fig. 428 represents another singularly fine specimen of a very uncommon form, it being much more acutely pointed than usual. It is stained all over of a deep ochreous colour, and its angles are still sharp. It has been boldly but symmetrically chipped, and has a thick, heavy butt, well adapted for being held in the hand. As is the case with almost all these implements, an analogous form has been found in the ​gravels of the valley of the Somme. The magnificent implement from the gravel of Vaudricourt, near Béthune, which was exhibited at Paris in 1867, was also much of this type. Its length is 101/4 inches; that of the Thetford specimen being 81/2 inches. It would be an endless task to attempt to engrave all the varieties of form found at this place, but Mr. Trigg is correct in his remark as to the comparative absence of the flat oval form with a cutting edge all round. The most common type here is the ovate-lanceolate, like Pl. I., Fig. 5, rather thick towards the butt-end. Mr. Flower has figured a fine lanceolate specimen, and one of more ovate form from this place.
Fig. 429.—Redhill, Thetford. 1/2
The finely-wrought symmetrical specimens are rarer at Redhill than at Santon Downham; but here, as elsewhere in this district, implements are occasionally found of what has been aptly termed the shoe-shaped type, of which an example is shown in Fig. 429. The form is flat on one face, the other being brought to a central ridge rising towards the butt, which is usually rounded and obtusely truncated. In this specimen the greater part of the butt-end or heel of the shoe exhibits the original crust of the nodule of flint from which the ​implement was formed. The point, which is usually brought to a semicircular sharp edge, has been broken in old times either by use or by attrition in the gravel. Most of these shoe-shaped instruments have been formed from large spalls of flint, so that the flat face has been the result of a single blow, though occasionally retouched by subsequent chipping.
Fig. 430.—Redhill, Thetford. 1/2
The implement shown in Fig. 430 is of this character, but is too thin, in proportion to its size, to represent the typical shoe-shape. It has been formed from a large external flake, the bulb of percussion being at the lower left-hand corner of the figure, but on the opposite face to that shown. The flake has been trimmed into shape by chipping along the edges on both faces, so that not above half of the original inner face remains free from secondary working. The surface is, as usual, stained of a rich ochreous brown.
Fig. 431.—Redhill, Thetford. 1/2
A considerable number of flint flakes of various sizes and shapes have been found at Redhill, many of them showing signs of use and wear on their edges, and some being worked to a quadrant of a circle or more, at the point, so as to make them almost assume the form of scrapers. I have one external flake in which is worked a curved recess, as if by scraping some hard cylindrical object, such as a round bone. The flake engraved as Fig. 431 was found by myself in December, 1865, and has had both its edges retouched by secondary chipping. The edge thus produced seems to have been worn away by use. I have a rather larger flake, presenting precisely the same characteristics, from the valley gravel of the Somme, at Porte Marcadé, Abbeville.
A little lower down the river, and on the same side as Redhill, is ​the spot to which the name of Whitehill has been given by Mr. Trigg. The gravel is composed of similar materials to that at Redhill, of which it may be said to form a continuation, except that the matrix is whiter. Mr. Trigg has informed me that beneath the gravel are beds of red sand, and that at one time, a section was exposed of 26 feet in depth. Of late, the gravel at this spot has been but little worked, and but few implements have been found in it.
Fig. 432.—Whitehill, Thetford. 1/2
Mr. Trigg records having obtained three flint implements from this place, one of which, at present in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, is engraved as Fig. 432. Its surface has become white and decomposed, and is partially covered by an incrustation of carbonate of lime. A part of the edge, towards the point, on the right side of the figure, appears to be worn away by use.
Remains of Elephas primigenius and horse have been found here, but no land or freshwater shells.
Between Whitehill and Santon Downham, but on the Suffolk slope of the valley, a considerable quantity of gravel has been dug on Thetford Warren. Though the gravel is of much the same character as at Redhill, no implements appear to have been found in it.
About three miles north-west of Thetford, and also on the Suffolk side of the Little Ouse, is Santon Downham Warren, on the slope of which towards the river, is a considerable expanse of gravelly beds, which have been largely excavated for road-making purposes. On the sketch map given by Mr. Flower, this place is erroneously called Whitehill. As has been already stated, the first implement from this spot was discovered by Mr. Trigg, when in my company, in 1865. Since that time, it has produced, at a moderate estimate, several hundred specimens, some of them affording the finest instances of the skill of the Palæolithic Period which have been found in Britain, or indeed elsewhere. The gravel is at a somewhat higher level above the river than that at Redhill, but resembles it in character. It contains, besides flints, a few of the quartzite pebbles of the New Red conglomerate, which have been derived from the Glacial beds and Boulder Clay which cap the chalk hills on either side of the river. The gravel is of considerable thickness, so much so that in places, caves of sufficient magnitude to allow of a man standing inside, have been formed within it, in consequence of the lower beds being let down into the ​chalk, through its erosion by water charged with carbonic acid. The same phenomenon has been observed at Bromehill, the spot next to be mentioned; and some connection was at one time supposed to exist between these cavities and the implements often found in and near them. I think, however, that the explanation that I have elsewhere given of their origin will be deemed satisfactory. No testaceous remains have been found here, and mammalian remains are very scarce.
Among the implements from Santon Downham, the almond-shaped type seems to predominate, though other forms are also found.
Fig. 433.—Santon Downham. 1/2
A very elegant pointed specimen, in my own collection, is shown in Fig. 433. It is chipped with great skill, and brought to a fine point, the butt-end being comparatively blunt, so that it may have been used in the hand without being in any way hafted. At the shoulder, shown in the side-view, a part of the original crust of the flint is left, and small portions are also left on the other face. In form, this implement curiously resembles some of those from Hoxne, and that from Gray's ​Inn Lane (Fig. 451). Like many of the implements from the gravel, it is cracked in various directions, apparently from inward expansion, and would break up into fragments with a slight blow. A very sharp point, such as that presented by this specimen, is not uncommonly met with in implements found at Santon Downham.
Fig. 434.—Santon Downham. 1/2
The original of Fig. 434 is also in my own collection, and is cracked in a similar manner. It is uniformly stained of a light buff colour, as are many of the implements from this spot, and has dendritic markings upon it, and in places, particles of ferruginous sand adhering to the surface. It is fairly symmetrical in contour, with an edge all round, which is somewhat blunted at what is the base in the figure. This edge, however, is not in one plane, but considerably curved, so that when seen sideways it forms an ogee sweep, even more distinctly than appears from the figure. I have other implements of the same and of more pointed forms, with similarly curved edges, both from France, and other parts of England, but whether this curvature was intentional, it is impossible to say. In some cases it is so marked that it can hardly be the result of accident, and the curve is, so far as I have observed, almost without exception Ƨ, and not S. If not intentional, the form may be the result of all the blows by which the implement was finally chipped out, having been given on the one face, on one side, and on the opposite face on the other.
Fig. 435 represents an implement of porcellanous, slightly ochreous ​flint, found at that place, and now in the Fitch collection at Norwich. The late Mr. Robert Fitch, F.S.A., kindly allowed me to engrave it, as well as the specimen next to be described. Implements of this broad, ovate-lanceolate form are extremely uncommon, and this is a remarkably symmetrical specimen, of good workmanship, and almost equally convex on the two faces. A few implements, almost circular in outline, have been found at this spot.
Another specimen from Nowton, Fig. 419c, shows almost the same form. In the Toulouse Museum is an implement (5 inches) in flint from Clermont, about 18 miles south of that town, found with remains of mammoth and reindeer.
Fig. 435.—Santon Downham. 1/2
The original of Fig. 436 presents an example of another rare form, almost crescent-like in character. There is frequently a slight want of symmetry between the two sides of the ordinary ovate implements, which gives them a tendency to assume this form, but I have never seen it so fully developed as in some of the implements from Santon Downham.
Another somewhat uncommon form is shown in Fig. 437, the original of which, with several others, was presented to the Christy Collection by the late Rev. W. W. Poley. It has been formed from a large broad flake, the flat face of which is not shown in the figure, and has been chipped to a bevelled segmental edge, so that it assumes the form of a 'broad' or 'side' scraper, resembling in character some of the implements from the cave of Le Moustier in the Dordogne.
In the Greenwell Collection is a thick flake from Santon Downham, 41/4 inches long and 21/4 inches wide, trimmed at the butt-end to a semicircular scraper-like edge.
Viewed as a whole, the implements from Santon Downham present a higher degree of finish, and a greater skill in chipping the required forms out of flint, than those found in the gravels of any other part ​of the valley of the Little Ouse, or, it may perhaps be added, of England or France.
Fig. 436.—Santon Downham. 1/2
Following the course of the river, the next spot at which flint implements have been found in the gravel, is a pit known as the Bromehill or Broomhill Pit, in the parish of Weeting, and on the Norfolk side of the Little Ouse, about a mile and a quarter east of Brandon. The gravel here is at a lower level than that at Santon Downham, or even Redhill, its base not being more than six or eight feet above the river, to which it is close.
The late Mr. Flower has described the spot, but his description of the section, and of the position in which the implements are found, does not completely coincide with mine. On the occasion of one of my visits to this pit, in July, 1868, in company with him, the section exposed was 24 feet in height, from the chalk at its base to the superficial soil at the summit. The upper part of the section showed ​sand, with a few gravelly seams, and from 8 to 10 feet in thickness; at the base of this, a dark ferruginous band, a few inches in thickness; then some 8 or 9 feet of ochreous gravel, with a red sandy matrix, which was separated by a band of grey sand from the lower beds of gravel, which contained a very large percentage of rolled chalk and seams of chalky sand. Below the chalky gravel, ferruginous beds also sometimes occur, containing large blocks of flint. In the chalky gravel (the base of which is but a few feet above the level of the river) implements are rarely found, but what there are, are usually black. In the upper gravel they are more abundant, and ochreous in tint. It was in this gravel that I had the opportunity of examining one of the cavities already mentioned; and in the pipe formed through the more chalky gravel into which a part of the upper bed had been let down, I witnessed the finding of a pointed flint implement. In character, the implements found at this spot much resemble those from Redhill. They are, however, usually more rolled and waterworn. There are but few pebbles from the Glacial Beds in the gravel, but among these Canon Greenwell has found one of quartzite, with the ends battered as if from its having been used as a hammer-stone.
Fig. 437.—Santon Downham.
Remains of Elephas primigenius, and of horse, have been found here, but as yet no land or freshwater shells.
The only specimen from this spot which I have thought it worth while to engrave, is shown in Fig. 438. It presents a much narrower form than is usual among the River-drift implements, and in outline closely approximates to some of the neolithic rough-hewn celts. It is, ​however, much more convex on one face than on the other, and presents what are apparently signs of wear along both the sides and the ends, the broader of which is somewhat gouge-like in character.
Fig. 438.—Bromehill, Brandon. 1/2
In addition to the pit in the bluff facing the river, there is another in the same gravel, but on the other side of the railway, which has been here cut through the Drift deposits. In this also implements have been found.
The next locality to be mentioned is on the Suffolk side of the river, about two miles S.W. of Brandon Station. This spot has already been described by Mr. Flower, under the name of Gravel Hill, Brandon; it is also known as Brandon Down, or Brandon Field; and from the contiguity of one of the pits to Brick-kiln Farm, Wangford, some specimens from this place have been labelled as found at Wangford.
The gravel is worked on both sides of the point of a high ridge of land, nearly at right angles to the course of the river, and about a mile distant from it. The summit of the ridge between two of the pits was found by Mr. Flower to be 91 feet above the level of the river at its nearest point. The surface of the ground where gravel has been dug is lower only by a few feet, and the beds possibly extend through the ridge. Between the ridge and the higher land to the S.W. a valley intervenes, along which the road to Mildenhall passes, so that the hill on which the gravel reposes is isolated. The gravel is usually not more than 10 feet in thickness, but often less, and it rests in some places immediately on the chalk. It contains a very large proportion of quartzite pebbles from the New Red Conglomerate, in some spots more than 50 per cent. of the whole, as well as fragments of jasper, clay-slate, quartz, greenstone and limestone; all derived from Glacial Beds, from which also many of the flints appear to have come. The matrix is of coarse red sand, and there is usually some thickness of sand above the gravel. In some few places there are beds formed almost exclusively of the quartzite pebbles; but Mr. Flower's estimate of their forming three fourths of the whole mass of gravel is, I believe, very far in excess.
Flint implements have been found here in considerable numbers—at all events, many hundreds. I have myself found several, and many flakes, but all in gravel already dug and not in situ. They appear to occur at all depths; but, as usual, for the most part, near ​the base, and occasionally resting on the chalk. A large proportion of them are very rude, though they were evidently chipped into shape for some particular purpose, and approximate to the more symmetrical specimens in general form. It seems hardly worth while to figure any of these roughly chipped implements, the character of which was no doubt in some measure determined by the shape of the original blocks of flint from which they were fashioned.
Fig. 439.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1/2
Mixed with these ruder tools or weapons, are some of much higher design and finish. Mr. Flower had some remarkably beautiful specimens, in form much like Fig. 472, from Milford Hill, two of which he bequeathed to me. One of these is rather more than 9 inches long and 41/2 inches broad. Some of the flattened oval implements, such as are common at Icklingham, occur also at Gravel Hill. I have one approaching the circular form, the length being 31/4 inches and the breadth 31/8. Those which I have selected for engraving are for the most part in my own collection. Fig. 439 shows an unusually thick pointed specimen of dark flint, with ochreous stains in places. This implement has been dexterously made from a nodule of flint, ​the original outer skin of which, is visible along the greater part of the ridge of one of the faces. It has also been left on part of the butt, which, though presenting some rather sharp angles, may have been intended to be held in the hand.
Fig. 440.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1/2
Fig.441.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1/2
I am not quite sure as to the locality along the course of the Little Ouse from which the implement shown in Fig. 440 was obtained by Mr. Flower, to whom it belonged, but it probably came from Gravel Hill. It presents the peculiarity of being almost as much pointed at one end as at the other. The depression in the centre is the result of a large flake having been removed, and is probably accidental. Though pointed at both ends, it seems probable that only one was intended for use, as a small flat surface has been left at the other end, which unfits it for cutting or piercing.
Flakes and spalls of flint are abundant in the gravel, though not often noticed by the workmen. That shown in Fig. 441 was found by myself near ​Brick-kiln Farm. Except that the surface has undergone more decomposition than is usual with flakes of the Neolithic Period, and that it bears upon it some of those bright shining specks, so common on flints from the gravel, there is nothing to distinguish it from one of much more modern date. These bright or polished spots, which are very minute, seem to indicate points of contact with other stones, and the lustre upon them is probably due in part to pressure and in part to friction. They are most apparent on dark-coloured flint, and afford one of the tests of the authenticity of a worked flint professing to belong to the River-drift Period.
Fig. 442.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1/2
One of the most interesting features at Gravel Hill is that there, for the first time, were found cutting stone implements of the Palæolithic Period formed of other materials than flint, chert, or quartzite. That shown in Fig. 442, though so identical in form with many of the ​implements of flint, is formed of felstone, no doubt derived either from the Boulder Clay or from some other of the Glacial Beds. One face appears to show a considerable portion of the original surface of the block of stone from which the instrument was fashioned, but the whole surface is now somewhat decomposed, so much so, that it is difficult to determine with certainty the nature of the material, which by some has been regarded as diorite rather than felstone. One face has been carefully chipped, the flakes having been removed in much the same manner as if the substance wrought had been flint. At one part of the other face there is a considerable shoulder between the central ridge and the edge near the butt, where, owing to the 'grain' of the stone, the flakes have run in and not come off kindly. The angles and edges are slightly rounded.
Fig. 443.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1/2
Even the quartzite pebbles so abundant in this neighbourhood, were occasionally utilized instead of flint. Mr. Flower obtained two pointed instruments manufactured from such pebbles, one of which he bequeathed to me. Lord Northesk had another well-formed ovate specimen. Another has already been mentioned as having been found near Icklingham. Another instrument, of a different form, was found by myself in the gravel near Brick-kiln Farm, and is represented in Fig. 443. It is a broad flake, having a well-marked cone of percussion on the flat face. The other face shows, over nearly its whole extent, the original surface of the quartzite pebble from which it has been formed. It has, however, had a portion removed on one side of the cone, apparently to produce a symmetrical form; and the whole of the edge at the broad end of the flake has been trimmed by chipping from the flat face, so as to produce a bevelled edge, which is now somewhat rounded, either by wear in the gravel or by use. In character this implement is like those from Santon Downham and Highbury (Figs. 437 and 453), or the side-scrapers from the cave of Le Moustier.
On the opposite side of Wangford Fen, rather more than 21/2 miles S.W. of Gravel Hill, and 3/4 mile E. of Lakenheath, close to Maid's Cross, is an isolated hill, about three miles distant from the Little Ouse, locally known as the Broom, but distinguished on the old Ordnance Map by the words, "The Old Churchyard." The spot has been described by Mr. Flower, with whom I have examined it. The greater part of the hill is capped with gravel, in places ​from 8 to 10 feet thick, and of much the same character as that at Gravel Hill, but less ferruginous, and not containing so many quartzite pebbles. The beds here have not been excavated to the same extent as those near Brandon, the gravel being only dug for the repairs of the parish roads; but several well-fashioned implements have been found in them, mostly of pointed form.
Fig. 444.—Valley of the Lark, or of the Little Ouse. 1/2
Some implements have also been found at a lower level in the gravel on the slope of the hill towards the Fens, and close to the main street of Lakenheath; amongst them one of ovate form most skilfully chipped into shape.
The curious implement shown in Fig. 444, which was presented ​to me by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., was procured from a Lakenheath workman, but it is not certain whether it was found in the gravel near that place, or in one of the pits near Brandon. It differs from all other implements that I have seen from the River-drift, in having an oblique hatchet-like edge at the end, so that the side-view somewhat resembles that of the iron Francisca of Saxon times. A considerable portion of the original crust of the flint remains at the butt-end. Until other specimens of the same form are discovered, it is hardly safe to regard this as furnishing an example of a new type of implement; yet its symmetry and character seem to prove that it was designedly chipped into this form, to fulfil some special purpose.
It will be best to postpone any remarks as to the probable connection of the beds near Lakenheath with the ancient course of the Lark and Little Ouse, until I come to consider the geological aspects of the whole case.
It was from a place called Botany Bay, near Brandon, that Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey, first obtained evidence on which he founded the existence of the beds that he termed Brandon Beds, which though containing palæolithic implements he regarded as occurring below the Chalky Boulder-clay, and as, therefore, of Interglacial date. The evidence that the implement-bearing beds are, at all events in the Eastern Counties, later than the Boulder Clay is now beyond all cavil, and, so far as I could judge, the supposed Boulder Clay lying above the implement bed at Botany Bay was not in its original position, but was either remanié or had slipped down from a higher level. It is, however, but fair to state that the Rev. O. Fisher, F.G.S., has accepted Mr. Skertchly's views, at all events with regard to some of the localities, as to there having been three successive Palæolithic Periods in Britain, each preceded and succeeded by a Glacial Period. I can only say that I am not prepared to accept such a view.
I must now proceed to describe another of the River-drift deposits in the more immediate neighbourhood of the Little Ouse, and lower down its course, at Shrub Hill, in the parish of Feltwell, Norfolk.
This too has been described by Mr. Flower in the paper to which I have already so frequently referred. It has also been described by Mr. H. Trigg, to whom flakes from this deposit were ​brought, so early as 1865. It caps a low-lying hill in the middle of the Fens, about 8 miles nearly due W. of Brandon, and 1 mile N. of the present course of the Little Ouse, and just to the N. of Fodder Fen Drove on the old Ordnance Map. Mr. Flower states that the gravel here is about 12 feet in thickness, but that at the surface it is only 6 feet above the river. Of course, however, the thickness varies, being often less than 8 feet; and I am inclined to think that the elevation above the river is somewhat under- estimated. The gravel consists mainly of subangular flints, mixed with some rolled chalk, a considerable number of quartzite pebbles, and rolled fragments of other old rocks, derived from the Glacial Beds higher up the river. It is in a very sandy matrix, more or less ochreous at different spots. In places, the sand predominates.
The Drift-beds rest upon the Gault clay, and not, as in most of the cases already described, upon the Chalk. The implements found here occur usually towards the base of the gravel, and as a rule are rolled and waterworn. They have been found in considerable numbers, and of various types, including many flakes. It will be remembered that a barbed arrow-head and a partially polished stone celt were also found here; from which it seems probable that in Neolithic times. Shrub Hill formed a habitable spot in the midst of the Fens, or possibly of the watery waste since choked up by vegetation. Teeth of Elephas primigenius, and fragments of the horns of deer, and teeth of some ruminant—probably deer also—and of a small horse, have been found at Shrub Hill in the gravel, but I have searched in vain for testaceous remains.
Among the implements found at Shrub Hill is one which is probably the largest of its class as yet discovered in England or France, and which was presented by the late Mr. Flower to the Christy Collection. It is fully 111/2 inches long and 51/4 inches broad near the base. Its greatest thickness is 3 inches. One face is much more highly ridged than the I other, and it has been boldly chipped with large facets. In general form it resembles Fig. 445 from the same locality, but is somewhat thicker and more elongated in its proportions, and is, as nearly as may be, six times the length of the figure. It weighs 5 lbs. 7 oz.
An interesting account of large and heavy examples of palæolithic implements has been compiled by Mr. Worthington Smith. The heaviest is one formed of quartzite in the Central Museum at Madras. It is 93/4 inches long and 53/4 wide with a weight of 61/4 lbs.
The small specimen here shown as Fig. 445 was found in 1866, and is less waterworn than is usual with Shrub-Hill implements, though its ​surface is beautifully sand-polished. It is of dark brown flint, in places mottled with a fine amber colour. It shows a part of the original crust of the flint at its base.
Fig. 445.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1/2
Fig. 446.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1/2
The same is the case with the implement shown in Fig. 446, which also is in my own collection. It is a specimen of a thin broad type ​occasionally met with. Towards the point the edge bears all the appearance of having been worn away by use as a scraping tool.
Fig. 447.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1/2
Another implement of somewhat the same character, but thicker at the butt, and having the sides rather straighter, so as to be more acutely pointed, is shown in Fig. 447. The angles are much waterworn, and the greater part of the base shows the natural crust of the flint.
Fig. 448.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1/2
The only other specimen which I have thought it worth while to engrave from this locality (Fig. 448), shows a considerably smaller example of the crescent-like implements, such as that already figured from Santon Downham. It is, however, of coarser workmanship, and not so broad in proportion to its length.
Most of the forms which are found higher up the valley of the Little Ouse occur also at Shrub Hill, and include some of the flattened oval type. But as a rule, the general facies of the implements is more like that of ​Redhill and Bromehill than that of either Santon Downham or of Gravel Hill, Brandon.
The Little Ouse joins the main river about 4 miles N.W. of Shrub Hill; and 5 miles N. of the junction the Ouse receives another affluent—the Wissey or Stoke River, draining 243 square miles—along the course of which, however, no palæolithic implements have as yet been found. The same is the case with the valley of the Nar or Setchy, a river which joins the Ouse just above King's Lynn, a few miles before it discharges into the Wash, and which drains an area of 131 square miles.
Along a great portion of its lower course the Ouse runs through a Fen country, where, of course, no gravel is to be seen; but at Ash Wicken and Leziate, a few miles E. of King's Lynn, and at South Wootton, about 2 miles to its N., the late Rev. John Gunn, F.G.S., found Drift-beds of apparently fluviatile character. In the gravels in a side valley leading into the marshes, near the School at South Wootton, Mr. W. H. Houghton, having been set upon the search for flint instruments by Mr. Gunn, found, in 1884, a tongue-shaped specimen, 51/4 inches long, in form much like that from Shrub Hill (Fig. 447), but having the whole surface worked, and having the flatter face slightly concave longitudinally. It is stained all over of an ochreous colour, and shows signs of use near the point, a part of which has been broken off. The angles, though not sharp, are not waterworn. The late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., of Bedford, also found, in the year 1870, in gravel in a pit near Lynn—the base of which is seldom reached on account of its lying below the level of the water—an oval flint implement, well formed and deeply stained, and another of rude workmanship.
Many miles to the east, but still in Norfolk, there is seen in the cliff at West Runton, near Cromer, what appears to be the channel of an old river, filled up with gravelly deposits. In these, at a depth of 12 feet from the surface, and above a black freshwater bed, Mr. A. C. Savin, of Cromer, in 1878, found in situ a fine well-wrought ovate implement of flint 43/4 inches long. A few years later I found on the sea-shore below, a large ochreous flake, apparently palæolithic, which I gave to Mr. Savin.
About 3 miles S.W. of Runton, near Gallows or Gibbet Corner, in Aylmerton parish, Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell found, in 1882, an ochreous implement from the gravels capping the hill, not far from Sherringham Heath. At East Runton, in the pre-glacial "Forest Bed," Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott thinks that he has found worked flints. I fail, however, to see any distinct marks of human workmanship upon his specimens.
With these discoveries in Norfolk and those near the mouth of the river, my account of the basin of the Ouse ceases, but before proceeding southwards I must record some others of the same kind.
Yorkshire lies far away from the usual scenes of palæolithic discoveries, but I have seen a pointed implement (33/4 inches), in form like Fig. 419, that was found on the surface at Huntow, near Bridlington. There is no record of its having been associated with any remains of the Quaternary fauna.
In the first edition of this book I recorded my finding an implement in form like Fig. 434, on a heap of stones near King's Langley, within ​a short distance of the railway. As the staining and incrustation upon it were unlike those on the stones of the local gravel, and corresponded with those on the flints in the ballast of the railway, I was inclined to refer the implement to that source, and to believe that it had been brought from Oundle with the gravel, at that time used for ballast. A visit to the pit proved unfruitful, but I suggested that in all probability a prolonged search might result in adding the valley of the Nene to those in which palæolithic implements have been found. My suggestion has now been justified. In 1882 Mr. T. George, F.G.S., found in a ballast pit at Elton, about 5 miles N. of Oundle, an ochreous pointed implement, in colour and appearance identical with mine from Langley, and kindly added it to my collection.
At Overton Longville, or Little Orton, two miles S.W. of Peterborough, a spot visited by Sir Joseph Prestwich and myself in search of palæolithic implements about 1861, some were found a few years ago by the late Dowager Marchioness of Huntly.
The next valley to be considered is that of the Waveney, a river which, after a circuitous course of 53 miles, joins the Yare a few miles S.W. of Yarmouth, and passes through Breydon Water to the sea. It takes its rise, as has already been stated, at Lopham Ford, close by the source of the Little Ouse.
Up to the present time there is but one locality known in its valley, where palæolithic flint implements have been found; but this is of peculiar interest, on account of the discoveries having been observed and recorded before the close of the last century, and, therefore, at a time when speculations as to the great antiquity of the human race can hardly be said to have commenced. And yet Mr. John Frere, F.R.S., in the concise and able account which he gives of the discovery, shows himself to have been so much struck by the situation in which the implements were found as to be tempted to refer them "to a very remote period, indeed, even beyond that of the present world." Mr. Frere states that the implements or weapons, as he terms them, lay in great numbers at the depth of about 12 feet, in a stratified soil, which was dug into for the purpose of raising clay for bricks; and he gives a section of the strata. He states that shells, which he erroneously regarded as marine, occurred in sand at a depth of 9 feet, together with bones of great size, and that below this, in a gravelly soil, the flints were found. His account is illustrated by excellent engravings of two of the implements, which I was enabled to reproduce in illustration of my first Essay on Flint Implements from the Drift, in 1859, and which have since been copied, on a smaller ​scale in Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times." Mr. Frere presented some specimens of the Hoxne implements to the Society of Antiquaries, which are still preserved in their museum; and it was my seeing these, on my return from Amiens and Abbeville, in 1859, that again directed attention to this most interesting discovery.
Sir Joseph Prestwich, F.R.S., in his admirable Papers on Flint Implements and their containing Beds, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1860 and 1864, has given full details of the contour of the surrounding country, and of the section at that time exposed in the brick-field visited by Mr. Frere more than sixty years before, which is still in operation. It is situated to the S.W. of the village of Hoxne, in Suffolk, and close to Fairstead Farm; Hoxne itself being about 4 miles to the east and slightly to the south of the market town of Diss, which is on the other, or Norfolk, side of the Waveney.
The Drift deposits rest in a kind of trough, in the Boulder Clay which caps all the neighbouring hills, and forms a sort of table-land through which the small valleys are cut. The top of the freshwater beds reaches within 6 or 8 feet of the summit of the hill of which they form an unbroken and uniform part. Their upper surface is about 40 feet above the neighbouring Goldstream, from which they are not more than 200 yards distant, and 50 feet above the Waveney, of which the Goldstream is a tributary, and which flows within about a mile of the spot. The present configuration of the surface is totally unconnected with these beds of Drift, and must have been produced after they were deposited.
The thickness of these lower beds was ascertained by Sir Joseph
In the gravel thrown out from Bed No. 4, I found an implement in form like Fig. 433, but which had lost its point through having been struck by the pick of the workman.
Fig. 449.—Hoxne. 1/2
The mammalian remains, which had then recently been found in this pit, consisted of those of deer, horse, and elephant. The shells comprised Cyclas, Pisidium, Unio, Bythinia, Helix, Limnæa, Planorbis, Succinea, and Valvata. Among the remains of trees, those of oak, yew, and fir had been recognized.
Implements still continue to be found from time to time in this pit. Several of those found long since are also extant, in addition to those already mentioned. One of pointed form was in the Meyrick Collection of Armour, and is stated to have been found 12 feet below the surface of the ground, and to have once been in the Leverian Museum. ​I have another of much the same character, which was sold by auction in London as an ancient British spear-head, but which I at once recognized as Palæolithic, and after purchasing it, found my opinion confirmed by the word Hoxne being written on its base.
In the account given by Mr. Frere, it is stated that the implements had been found in such quantities that they had been thrown into the ruts of the adjoining road, and it therefore appeared probable that in the disturbed upper soil of the worked-out parts of the pit, some implements still existed. I accordingly made search for them, and succeeded in discovering, besides several flakes—one of which is 5 inches long and 2 inches broad—three implements, of which one is engraved in Fig. 449. It will be observed that a flat place has been left on one of the side edges of this instrument, probably to allow of its being held comfortably in the hand, so as to serve for a rude kind of knife.
Fig. 450.—Hoxne.
Two remarkably fine specimens—one of them much like that from Reculver, Fig. 459, and the other somewhat more irregular in form but also round-pointed—were likewise found in the disturbed soil by Mr. Charles M. Doughty, of Caius College, Cambridge, and are now in the Woodwardian Museum. There are other specimens in the Christy Collection. A pointed implement from this place has been figured by Prestwich.
Another of these very acutely pointed implements is shown in Fig. 450, the original of which is in my own collection. It presents the peculiarity, which is by no means uncommon in ovate implements, of having the side edges not in one plane but forming a sort of ogee curve like that of Fig. 434. In this instance, the blade is twisted to such an extent that a line, drawn through the two edges near the point, is at an angle of at least 45° to a line through the edges at the broadest part of the implement. I think, however, that this twisting of the edges was not in this case intended to serve any particular purpose, but was rather the accidental result of the method pursued in chipping the flint into its present form. Curiously enough, one of the specimens presented by Mr. Frere to the Society of Antiquaries exhibits the same peculiarity, and, indeed, so closely resembles mine, that they might have been both made by the same hand. An essay on the Hoxne deposits by the late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., will be found in the Quarterly Journal of Science.
​I have left my original account of this locality almost unaltered, but the whole circumstances of the deposit have now been most thoroughly and satisfactorily investigated. In 1888 Mr. Clement Reid, F.G.S., and Mr. H. N. Ridley, F.L.S., communicated a paper to the British Association, calling attention to the presence of fossil Arctic plants in the lacustrine deposits at Hoxne. This was followed, in 1895, by some further notes on the deposits by the same authors, with the result that a small committee, of which I was chairman, was appointed by the Association, "to ascertain by excavations at Hoxne, the relation of the Palæolithic deposits to the Boulder Clay, and to the deposits with Arctic and Temperate plants." A sum of money, subsequently supplemented by a grant from the Royal Society, enabled Mr. Clement Reid, Messrs. E. P. and H. N. Ridley, to carry out the necessary borings and excavations, while Miss Morse aided in washing out specimens, and Mr. Mitten in determining the species of the mosses. I cannot here enter into the details of the case, but must refer the reader to the "Report of the Committee" for them. The general results of the examination are as follows.
The deposits lie in a valley excavated in the Chalky Boulder Clay of the district, through which a stream ran, probably connected with the valley of the Waveney. By subsidence the channel of the stream was converted into the bed of a freshwater lake which gradually silted up, and its site became covered with a dense thicket of alders. From some cause or other, lacustrine conditions re- appeared and 20 feet more of freshwater strata were deposited, but the climate had become Arctic or sub-Arctic. Then followed floods which deposited the implement-bearing beds, and finally the strata became sandy. During the formation and the silting up of the channel, the climatic conditions seem to have changed at least twice, having been at one time mild and then again Arctic. To use the words of the report: "The Palæolithic deposits at Hoxne are therefore not only later than the latest Boulder Clay of East Anglia, but are separated from it by two climatic waves, with corresponding changes of the flora. Such sweeping changes cannot have been local. They must have affected wide areas."
Subsequently, however, to the Palæolithic beds being deposited, all traces of the shores of the old lake have disappeared, and but for artificial excavations the surface of the ground would give no indication either of a stream or lake having existed at the spot.
​Though terraces of gravel are found at various places along the course of the Waveney, and apparently of the same age as those of the Little Ouse valley, yet up to the present time no discoveries of implements in them have been recorded, although it seems improbable that it is at Hoxne alone that implements exist.
In the gravels of the valleys of the Gipping, and other small streams between the Waveney and the Stour, no works of man have as yet been discovered; but in a pit worked for ballast, near Melford Junction, on the Great Eastern Railway, and at no great distance from the Stour, the late Mr. Henry Trigg discovered one or two implements of flint, and a portion of a tooth of Elephas primigenius. Some worked flints have also been found in the gravel at Sudbury, Suffolk, and some palæolithic implements in the valley of the Stour, north of Colchester. In the cliff at Stutton, opposite Manningtree, is a freshwater deposit containing many shells of Corbicula fluminalis. Numbers of these washed out from the cliff are lying on the shore, and among them I found, in 1883, a broad flake about 3 inches long, which has all the appearance of being palæolithic. At Lexden Park, near Colchester, Mr. Edward Laver has found a small ovate implement with a cutting edge all round, ogival in character. Some other specimens have been discovered to the north of Colchester. On the banks of the Ter, a tributary of the Chelmer, Mr. J. French has found two palæolithic implements near Felstead; and in 1883, at North End Place, 11/2 miles south of Felstead, the Rev. A. L. Rowe, F.G.S., picked up a rudely chipped heavy oval implement of quartzite (6 inches) which he has kindly added to my collection.
The valleys of the small rivers between the Stour and the Thames, the Colne, the Blackwater, and the Crouch, have up to the present time produced no relics of human workmanship, though I have seen a rudely worked flint, apparently from gravel, which was found on the sea-shore by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., a little to the north of the mouth of the Colne.
Before proceeding to discuss the discoveries that have been made within the basin of the Thames and in the Southern counties, I must call attention to one that was made in 1890 in the Midland Counties, not far from Birmingham.
The old gravels of the river Rea at Saltley, Warwickshire, have for a long time been subjected to a careful examination by Mr. Joseph Landon, F.G.S., of Saltley College, in the hope of ​finding in them some relics of human workmanship; and his search has been rewarded by the discovery of the undoubted palæolithic implement, which through his kindness I am able to exhibit in Fig. 450a. It is 4 inches in length and has been formed from a brown quartzite pebble which, by dexterous chipping, has been brought into a nearly symmetrical form with a sharp point and edge. It much resembles one from the Robin Hood Cave, Creswell Crags, Fig. 413a.
Fig. 450a.—Saltley. 1/2
The valley of the river Rea runs at Saltley in a more or less N.N.E. direction, and is about a mile in width. Several stretches of gravel are found at different heights on both sides of the valley, but especially on the southern side. The highest and oldest gravels on this side are exposed in a clay-pit just in front of Saltley College, and are about 3 feet in thickness. They consist in the main of small quartzite pebbles in a light-brown sandy matrix, though some large pebbles and a few broken foreign flints also occur, and below the sandy beds is a layer, 3 or 4 feet thick, of Glacial clay and sand, with pebbles and boulders (Arenig felsite, &c.), and below this again come the Keuper marls, which are used for brick-making. The level of the top of the gravels is 395 feet above Ordnance Datum and that of the river is about ​315 feet, so that the valley must have been excavated to the depth of at least 80 feet since the gravels were deposited.
The implement was found at the base of the sandy gravel at a distance of about 60 yards from the front of Saltley College. In the same beds and in a small area, some 10 yards square, were found a number of fractured quartzite pebbles, which though not presenting such distinct signs of design may possibly owe their forms to human workmanship. Some of the chipped pieces of quartzite in the caves of Creswell Crags are rude in the extreme. The discovery of this well-fashioned specimen suggests some interesting considerations.
It has been held that the absence of palæolithic implements in Britain north of an imaginary line drawn from about the mouth of the Severn to the Wash, is due to glacial conditions having prevailed in the north-west part of England and in Scotland at the time when the makers of these early tools or weapons occupied the southern and eastern parts of this country, which, however, in those days was not an island but was still connected with the Continent.
The question now arises whether the assumed absence of palæolithic implements over this area may not be due to their not having as yet been found, and not to their non-existence.
It must be remembered:—
1st. That flint is extremely scarce over a great part of the area, and therefore that any implements would almost of necessity have to be formed from some other material, such as quartzite or one of the older rocks.
2nd. That in the case of implements made of such materials, the evidences of human workmanship are not so conspicuous or so easily recognized as on those formed of flint.
3rd. That owing to the nature of the rocks over which the ancient rivers flowed, the alluvial deposits within the area in question are of quite a different character from those formed in districts where flint abounds.
4th. That such alluvial deposits are not so constantly being excavated for economic purposes, and consequently not so open to examination as ordinary flint gravels, and that implements made from such materials as quartzite being probably more difficult to make, they would be fewer in number over a given area and also more highly treasured.
Even in the case of cave-deposits we have seen how, in those of ​Creswell Crags, a locality which lies within the presumed nonimplementiferous district, all the larger implements were made from quartzite, some of the tools being so rude that human workmanship can hardly be recognized upon them. I therefore venture to think that if competent observers like Mr. Landon will devote their attention to the ancient gravel-like alluvial deposits of our northern rivers, and seek for implements not formed of flint but of quartzite or some other of the older rocks, their search will be rewarded. In some of the Welsh caves the implements were for the most part made of felstone and chert.
The finding in the neighbourhood of Bridlington of a flint implement of a distinctly palæolithic type, seems to afford corroborative evidence in favour of extending the area of such discoveries, though it must be admitted that so far as at present known it was not lying in association with any remains of the pleistocene fauna.
It may be incidentally mentioned that palæolithic implements of quartzite, and even of Tertiary sandstones, occur though rarely in districts in which flint abounds. Possibly it was found that this material was tougher and less brittle than flint, and therefore better adapted for certain uses when the sharpness of the edge was not of primary importance. Most of the implements from India are formed of a quartzite which is more easily chipped into form than that of our English pebbles.
I now come to the important district drained by the Thames and its affluents, which comprises an area of upwards of 5,000 square miles. The number of localities within this area, where discoveries have been made in the ancient River-drift, has greatly increased since 1872, and at some of them palæolithic implements have been found in abundance.
The Thames valley may moreover lay claim to the first recorded discovery of any flint implement in the Quaternary gravels, whether in this or any other country. An implement is preserved in the British Museum to which my attention was first directed by Sir A. Wollaston Franks, and which is thus described in the Sloane Catalogue:—"No. 246. A British weapon found, with elephant's tooth, opposite to black Mary's, near Grayes Inn Lane. Conyers. It is a large black flint shaped into the figure of a spear's point. K." This K. signifies that it formed a portion of Kemp's collection. It appears to have been found at the close of the seventeenth century, and a rude engraving of it illustrates a letter on the antiquities of London, by Mr. Bagford, dated in 1715, and printed ​
Fig. 451.—Gray's Inn Lane. 1/1
​in Hearne's edition of Leland's "Collectanea." From his account it would seem that a skeleton of an elephant was found not far from Battlebridge by Mr. Conyers, and that near the place where it was found, "a British weapon made of a flint lance, like unto the head of a spear, was dug up."
A full-sized engraving of this implement illustrated my first notice of these discoveries, in the Archæologia, and is here reproduced as Fig. 451. As will be seen, it is remarkably similar in form to that from Santon Downham, Fig. 433, though rather larger in size. During some excavations in Gray's Inn Lane in 1883 and 1884, several palæolithic implements of different forms were found; but none I think so fine as that described by Leland. One found in Clerkenwell Road in 1883 by Mr. G. F. Lawrence, was, however, slightly larger. Another implement was found in Drury Lane, and others from Jermyn Street and Prince's Street, Oxford Street, are in the Museum of Economic Geology.
Fig. 452.—Hackney Down. 1/2 Before describing the recent discoveries which have been made higher up the valleys of the Thames and its affluents, it will be well to discuss the various localities in the immediate neighbourhood of London, so as not to disturb the sequence of the Figures which is necessarily that of my first edition. It will be needless to do this at any great length, as the principal investigator of the gravels around London, to whom indeed the greater part of the discoveries are due—Mr. Worthington G. Smith—has given full particulars in his excellent book, "Man, the Primeval Savage."
In the British Museum is an oval implement, formerly in the collection of the late Rev. Dr. Sparrow Simpson, F.S.A., shown in ​Fig. 452, and found by Mr. G. H. Gaviller in gravel dug at Hackney Down, to the north-east of London, and not far from Shacklewell. It is of ochreous flint, slightly rolled, and in form remarkably like that from Bournemouth, Fig. 476. Though the exact place whence it came is unknown, there can be no doubt of its belonging to the Hackney Down gravels, which may be regarded as identical in age and character with those of Shacklewell, which have been described by Sir Joseph Prestwich. The surface of the ground at Hackney Down is 70 feet above Ordnance Datum, and in 1806 a shaft was there sunk through gravel and sand, to a depth of 22 feet. In the sandy beds at the base Mr. G. J. Smith discovered numerous land and freshwater shells, and among them the Hydrobia marginata—already mentioned as having been found in the Bedford Drift, and as being no longer an inhabitant of Britain—and the Corbicula fluminalis, which has already been cited as occurring near Cambridge, and of which more will be said immediately. The Shacklewell gravel mainly consists of sub-angular broken flints, some large flints but little worn, Lower Tertiary pebbles, a few quartz and sandstone pebbles, and some rolled blocks of hard Tertiary sandstone. In the pit described by Sir Joseph Prestwich there is, at a depth of about 8 feet, a bed of sandy clay intercalated in the gravel, and containing mammalian remains, numerous land and freshwater shells, and remains of oak, elm, alder, and hazel. The group of shells procured here resembles that of the Salisbury Drift, of which mention will be made hereafter.
Since 1854, when his paper was read, numerous specimens of the Corbicula fluminalis, or, as it was formerly called, the Cyrena consobrina, have been found here by Sir Joseph Prestwich, Sir Charles Lyell, and others, including myself. This shell, of a mollusc no longer living in Europe, though still found in the Nile and in several Asiatic rivers, has also been found in the Drift deposits of the Somme at Menchecourt, near Abbeville, associated with flint implements; and is likewise to be met with in the drift deposits of the Thames at Gray's Thurrock, Ilford, Erith, and Crayford, in several of which implements have now been found. The beds at these places have by some geologists been regarded as belonging to an older and Pre-glacial period; but the discovery of an implement at Hackney Down raises a presumption that the gravel there is, like other flint implement-bearing gravels. Post-glacial; and the discovery of an implement in beds of fluviatile origin at a still higher level than those of Hackney Down corroborates this view, as the lower bed is probably the more modern.
The fluviatile beds in question were exposed in two brick-pits at Highbury New Park, near Stoke Newington, and attention was first called to them in August, 1868, by the late Mr. Alfred Tylor, F.G.S. The surface of the ground at the more eastern of these two pits is, according to Mr. Tylor, 102 feet above Ordnance Datum; and 22 feet below the surface there is a bed of clay 2 feet thick, full of land and freshwater shells, accompanied by much wood. There are ​also shells in the lower part of the reddish loam or brick-earth immediately above the clay. The shells are said to consist of Helix, Zua, Clausilia, Succinea, Carychium, Limnæa, Planorbis, Valvata, Pisidium, and Cyclas; to which Mr. J. Wood Mason, F.G.S., added Achatina, Bythinia, Pupa, and Velletia.
Fig. 453.—Highbury New Park. 1/2
On reading the account of this discovery, I was at once impressed with the possibility of the occurrence of palæolithic implements in the deposit; and accordingly in September, 1868, I visited the pit with the view of searching for them, taking with me my youngest son, Norman, who had a quick eye, and an almost instinctive power of recognizing a worked flint. Our search was soon rewarded, for immediately on descending into the lower part of the pit, where the shell-bearing beds were exposed, my son picked up the remarkably well-formed implement shown in Fig. 453. It was not in situ, but was lying in the bottom of the pit; and judging from the staining upon a portion of its surface, it appears to have been derived from the brick-earth, rather than from the more shelly beds below.
It is well adapted for being held in the hand as a sort of knife or chopper, having a thick rounded back formed of the natural crust of the nodule of flint from which it was formed. One face of it has been the result of a single blow, and its surface is that of a portion of a what irregular cone, at the apex of which the blow was struck, by ​which it was produced. The other face, as will be seen by the figure, has been fashioned by first roughly chipping the implement to a curved edge, by blows administered on the flatter face, and then neatly trimming this edge to a regular sweep by secondary chipping. The ends have also been trimmed into shape. At the upper end, as shown in the figure, a small piece has been broken off, but otherwise the edge is uninjured. In character it is identical with the implement from the Santon Downham gravel, Fig. 437, and it closely resembles some of the large trimmed flakes from High Lodge, near Mildenhall, and the "choppers" from the cave of Le Moustier. The surface of the flint is stained ochreous in places, and presents much the same appearance as do some of the implements from the brick- earth at Hoxne.
It was in consequence of my publication of these discoveries that the attention of Mr. Worthington Smith was directed to the gravels of North-Eastern London, among which his labours have been crowned with such marked success. Not only has he found palæolithic implements in the City, Gray's Inn Lane, Clerkenwell, London Fields, Dalston, Kingsland, Homerton, Hackney, Lower Clapton, Upper Clapton, Stamford Hill, Mildmay Park, South Hornsey, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, and Shacklewell, but he has been able to identify the old surface of the ground, which was occupied by the early men who chipped out the implements. To this old land-surface he has given the name of the "Palæolithic floor," and he has been able to trace its existence over a considerable area of ground on the western as well as the eastern side of the river Lea. It consists of a stratum of five or six inches of subangular ochreous gravel, in some places, however, only one or two inches in thickness, or only visible as a tone of colour. On, and imbedded in this floor among rolled and waterworn stones and bones, black, sharp and unabraded implements of flint occur, together with flakes which, in some instances, have been susceptible of being replaced in their original juxtaposition. Below the floor are usually thin beds of sand containing shells of land and freshwater mollusca, and beds of gravel, sometimes as much as 12 feet thick, containing palæolithic implements more or less abraded. The sand is not always present. Above the floor are usually contorted loamy beds of "warp and trail," generally 4 to 6 feet thick, including the superficial humus. These seem to be of subaerial origin and may be due to a lengthened prevalence of a cold and rainy climate. The fauna of the gravels is described as including Felis spelæa, Hyæna, Elephas primigenius, E. antiquus, Rhinoceros megarhinus, R. leptorhinus, and R. tichorhinus, Cervus tarandus, and Megaceros hibernicus. Remains of Antilope Saïga have, I believe, been also found. Among the testaceous remains Corbicula fluminalis and Hydrobia marginata have already been noted.
Another diligent investigator of the gravels of North-East London, who has also treated of the Palæolithic floor, is Mr. J. E. Greenhill. He has given some interesting sections, showing how the waterworn, abraded implements underlie those of the Palæolithic floor which are quite unworn. Professor Rupert Jones, F.R.S., has also written on ​the subject. The best geological account is that given by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S.
By the kindness of Mr. Worthington Smith most of the important specimens that he has found are now in my collection. I am further indebted to him for the use of the blocks illustrating some of the implements. Fig. 453a exhibits a finely pointed implement from Lower Clapton. Its surface is lustrous and it shows at its butt part of the original crust of the nodule of flint out of which it was chipped.
Fig. 453a.—Lower Clapton. 1/2
The fine ovate implement, Fig. 453b, came from the 12 feet stratum at Stamford Hill. It is of dark colour, lustrous, and has the angles slightly abraded.
A small example from the Palæolithic floor at Stoke Newington is shown in Fig. 453c. The edges are still quite sharp, and at one place there appear to be races of use. A quartzite implement from the same locality is shown in Fig. 453d.
Implements presumably of Palæolithic Age have been found in the bed of the Thames. One from Battersea is of peculiar form, with a ​truncated butt, and has been presented to the Christy Collection by Sir A. Wollaston Franks, F.R.S.
Fig. 453b.—Stamford Hill. 1/2
Fig. 453c.—Stoke Newington Common. 1/2
Another from Hammersmith is in the same collection, having been formerly in that of the late Rev. Dr. Sparrow Simpson, F.S.A. It is 81/4 inches long, and much resembles that from Reculver, Fig. 458, though somewhat longer in its proportions and thicker in the butt. It is much rolled and waterworn, so that it has probably belonged to a bed of gravel at a much higher level than that from which it was dredged up. Another (55/16 inches) from the bed of the Thames at the Chelsea Suspension Bridge was found by Mr. Lambton Young, C.E., in 1854, before general attention had been directed to such relics. Mr. G. F. Lawrence, of Wandsworth, has ovate specimens from the Thames, at Wandsworth, Battersea, Putney, and Richmond, all but the latter much rolled.
It will be most convenient to reserve the discoveries in the South of London and in the valley of the ​Lea for future pages, and to proceed up the Thames valley towards its sources.
Fig. 453d.—Stoke Newington Common. 1/2
Nearly ten miles to the west of London, and on the northern side of the Thames, the careful researches of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., have been amply rewarded, he having found several implements of well-marked palæolithic types, and numerous flakes, in the gravels of Ealing Dean and Acton. He has fully described the localities and given sections of the beds in a communication to the Geological Society.
At the former spot, the surface of the ground is 92 feet above Ordnance Datum, and here several implements have been found. At Acton the surface is from 60 to 80 feet above high-water mark, and here an implement of oval form was found beneath 7 feet of stratified sand and gravel, and resting on the clay beneath; another, of pointed form, was found in the middle of the gravel, about 10 feet from the surface, and beneath beds of sand 8 feet in thickness. Others were found in gravel from the same spot, and from Mill Hill, half-a-mile to the westward, which had been spread on the roads. One of the pointed implements from Ealing Dean is shown in Fig. 454. In form it much resembles that from Reculver, Fig. 458, though smaller in size. Like all the other implements from these two spots, it is stained of the ochreous colour of the gravel, and has had its angles worn away by being rolled in water along with the other constituents of the gravel. The flakes, which are comparatively abundant, are for the most part ​large and rude, but many appear to have had their edges chipped by use. Some have been wrought into the scraper form. Cores or blocks of flint from which flakes have been struck have also been found.
Fig. 454.—Ealing Dean. 1/2
In May, 1871, an implement, 8 inches long, and of rather less tapering form than that from Ealing, Fig. 454, was found at Acton, beneath 13 feet of sand and gravel, at a spot where the surface is 70 feet above high-water mark. General Pitt Rivers has also seven or eight flakes of flint, one of them 51/2 inches long and 1 inch wide, which were found together, beneath 9 feet of brick-earth and gravel, in excavating for the foundations of a house at Acton. Their edges are sharp and unworn, so that they must have been deposited where they were found, prior to the accumulation of the 9 feet of drifted beds above them. They lay in a bed of ochreous sandy clay, about 1 foot in thickness, which reposed immediately on the blue London Clay.
In Acton village, the beds of Drift which constitute the first patch of gravel occurring at so high a level as we go westward from London, and which form a sort of terrace overlooking the broad valley of the Thames, attain a thickness of 18 feet, and consist of layers of sub-angular gravel, mixed with yellow and white sand, very irregularly stratified. The gravel consists principally of flints and Tertiary pebbles, with some of quartz and quartzite. A few mammalian remains, including a tooth of Elephas primigenius, have been found in these beds, and south of Ealing Park land and freshwater shells. At ​a lower level, and cut off from the upper gravels by an outcrop of London Clay, is a wide terrace of alluvial deposits at an average height of about 20 feet above high-water mark, and a lower terrace still is to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of the river. General Pitt Rivers's researches in the mid-terrace beds of gravel and brick-earth have not produced any implements of the River-drift types, but he has obtained animal remains which were identified by the late Mr. G. Busk, F.R.S., as those of Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros hemitœchus, Hippopotamus major, Bos primigenius, Bison priscus, Cervus tarandus, and other species of deer. They occur invariably at the base of the gravel 12 or 13 feet from the surface. The late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., has speculated on the age and character of the Acton deposits.
Mr. J. Allen Brown, F.G.S., has diligently continued these researches, and in laminated clay, 200 feet above O.D. at the Mount, Ealing, has found an ochreous flake trimmed at the edge. At Creffield Road, Acton, Middlesex, he has discovered another "Palæolithic floor," having found more than 600 flakes and implements in an area of not more than 40 feet square. Besides implements from Acton and Ealing up to 130 feet above O.D. he has described specimens from East Sheen, on the other side of the Thames, and Hanwell, Iver, Gunnersbury, Kew, Turnham Green, and Dawley, near West Drayton. An ovate implement from Dawley is of felsite. He has also described implements found at Southall associated with remains of Elephas primigenius. A pointed specimen from Southall is made of quartzite. At Hounslow also implements have been found. It is possible that the gravels at West Drayton belong to the valley of the Colne rather than to that of the Thames, as also those at Hillingdon, where in the Town-pit, 180 feet above O.D., Mr. Brown has found palæolithic implements.
Farther west, at Langley and at Burnham, implements have been found in the gravels. One from Burnham was given to me by Mr. E. Sawyer. He has also found a broad-pointed implement at Cookham, near Maidenhead. They have likewise been discovered at Ruscombe, Taplow, Maidenhead, and Marlow. A very broad-pointed implement (51/2 inches) found in high-level gravel at Cookham, Maidenhead, has been shown to me by Mr. E. Sawyer. In my own collection are specimens from the majority of the other localities here enumerated. In form and character they approximate so closely to those from similar deposits elsewhere that it seems needless to figure any of them.
Higher up the river Thames, the next important discoveries to recite are those which have been made in and near Reading by Dr. Joseph Stevens. At Grovelands, about 80 feet above the level of the ​river, near the junction of the Kennet and the Thames, the Drift deposits are ferruginous and about 15 feet thick. In them were found a tooth of a mammoth and numerous implements, principally of ovate forms and made of flint, but among them one made of quartzite. At Redlands, at a lower level, about 40 feet above the river, mammoth remains occur, as also at the Kennet Mouth Pit, Newtown, where a kite-shaped implement was found. The geological position and structure of the Redlandsbeds have been described by Prof. Poulton, F.R.S. In 1882 I found in the gravel at Pig's Green, near Reading, the butt-end of a pointed implement, which had been originally about 41/2 inches long and had lost its point before being deposited in the Drift. The gravel was subangular and ochreous, and contained from 15 to 20 per cent, of quartzite pebbles. Flint flakes were fairly abundant, but finished implements, scarce. On the other side of the river, at Caversham, Dr. Stevens has found implements in gravel 120 feet above the level of the Thames. I have myself found an acutely-pointed implement (4 inches) in the same beds.
These Caversham Beds have been well described by Mr. O. A. Shrubsole. At Toots Farm the implements are usually pointed, as also at Shiplake, at a distance of about three miles and at a slightly lower level. At Henley Road, Caversham, about 59 feet above the Thames, he obtained a flat ovoid implement of flint. A molar of Elephas primigenius was found at this spot. South of the Thames, besides the pits mentioned by Dr. Stevens, Mr. Shrubsole enumerates the following localities: a cutting of the South Western Railway at Earley, one of the Great Western Railway at Sonning, a gravel-pit at Charvil Hill, Sonning, and a brick-yard at Ruscombe, near Twyford. In the last-mentioned place several implements of various types have been found. Some extremely doubtful specimens, probably of purely natural origin, have been found on Finchampstead Ridges, but in gravel at Wokingham a large highly finished pointed implement has been obtained by Mr. P. Sale.
Some more or less worked flints from the Reading gravels have been described and figured by Mr. 0. A. Shrubsole, who has assigned uses to what he terms " the less familiar forms of Palæolithic Flint Implements."
Still higher up the Thames, near Wallingford, there is a considerable spread of gravel, some of it at a distance of two miles or more from the existing streams. In this gravel implements have been found, though up to the present time in no great abundance. I ​have a fine kite-shaped specimen of the type of Plate I., No. 6 (51/2 inches), that was found at Gould's Heath, East of Wallingford, and two from Turner's Court, rather nearer the town. In all three cases the flint has become more or less whitened. I have another large flat ovate implement more like Plate I., No. 16, that was found at Cholsey, on the other side of the river. It is more lustrous and not so much whitened. Another was found on the surface at Ipsden, 3 miles S.E. of Wallingford.
In the neighbourhood of Oxford a fair number of palæolithic implements have been found, some of which are in the University Museum. The first of these was a fine specimen with a heavy butt and pointed tip (broken off), procured, in 1874, by Sir Joseph Prestwich from gravel on the left bank of the Cherwell, at Marston Ferry, not more than from 4 to 5 feet from the surface. Another, ovate (33/4 inches), was obtained by the late Professor Rolleston from the foundations of the New Schools in the High Street, in 1878, and two more of ruder workmanship came from the site of the Girls' High School in the Banbury Road, in 1880. Yet another was found below Oxford by the side of Bagley Wood, opposite Iffley. The principal discoveries have, however, been made at Wolvercote, about 11/2 miles north of Oxford, whence many have been collected by Mr. A. M. Bell, from whose account of the discoveries I have been quoting. Among the specimens in his and other collections are pointed and ovate implements, a fine example of the shoe-shaped type, like Fig. 429 (81/2 inches), trimmed flakes and a hammer-stone. One of Mr. Bell's pointed implements has been chipped out of quartzite. The brick-earth and gravel deposits lie in what appears to be an old river-channel, which has been cut into the Oxford clay and the superimposed Northern Drift to a depth of about 17 feet from the surface. It is at the base of this channel that the implements are found. In the sand near the base nine or ten species of land and freshwater shells occur, and in a peaty bed immediately above the sand and gravel the remains of various plants; but both the testaceous and vegetable remains belong to species still found in the neighbourhood. Mammoth, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus as well as Corbicula fluminalis have, however, been found in the Oxford gravels. The beds at Wolvercote above the peat consist of clay and sand deposited evenly in successive layers, but towards the surface they are ​traversed by an irregular line of "trail," such as is often seen above palæolithic deposits and for which it is so difficult to account.
Mr. Percy Manning, F.S.A., possesses several palæolithic implements found near Oxford. Among eleven specimens from Wolvercote, mostly tongue-shaped, is one of brown flint 91/2 inches long and 41/2 inches broad, sharply pointed with a truncated butt and the sides curving outwards somewhat like Fig. 475. Another fine implement from the same place has straighter sides and is 63/4 inches long. The others are smaller, but among them is one of pointed form rather rudely chipped from a quartzite pebble.
Mr. Manning has also three implements dredged from a backwater of the Thames between Oxford and North Hinksey, one of them (41/2 inches) like Fig. 422, but more roughly chipped and much waterworn. Another (4 inches) is like Fig. 436, but more pointed. The third (51/8 inches), is a remarkably symmetrical ovate-lanceolate implement, in outline like Plate II., No. 11, made out of a pebble of quartzite, or possibly of chert. This also is waterworn.
At Broadwell, Oxon, on the borders of Gloucestershire, Mr. Manning found an implement (41/4 inches) resembling Fig. 459, apparently from gravel dug upon the spot. The village of Broadwell lies about 3 miles to the north of the Thames.
In my former edition I called attention to the discovery in the valley of the Wey, at Peasemarsh, between Guildford and Godalming, by the late Mr. Whitbourn, F.S.A., some sixty years ago, of the implement shown in Fig. 455, which is now in my own collection. It was found embedded in the gravel in a layer of sand about 4 or 5 feet from the surface, in apparently undisturbed ground. Mr. Whitbourn had heard of remains of large animals having been discovered in the same beds, but not in very close proximity to the spot where the implement was found. It is, as will be seen by the figure, of a different shape from the majority of the implements found in the River-drift, being very broad at the base and short in proportion to its width. The flint of which it consists is grey and slightly ochreous. At the base is a considerable portion of the original crust of the flint, which is stained of a dull red. The gravel beds, in which it was found, have been described by Mr. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S. They rest on Wealden Clay, and in places, on beds of the Lower Greensand. The material principally consists of sub -angular chalk flints, and ​in it have been found numerous remains of Elephas primigenius. In places, the gravel overlies what appears to have been an old land-surface, in the mould of which fragments of branches of trees, and bones of ox and elephant, have been found uninjured and lying together. Mr. Godwin-Austen does not record the discovery of any land or freshwater shells in the gravels, nor on visiting the spot was I able to find any, or any more worked flints. In the Woodwardian Museum, at Cambridge, is an implement of palæolithic type, and of the ovate form, found higher up the valley of the Wey, near Alton, but on the surface, and not in gravel.
Fig. 455.—Peasemarsh, Godalming. 1/2
At Farnham, between Alton and Godalming, many palæolithic implements have been secured from the gravels of the valley of the Wey, principally through the intelligent care of Mr. Frank Lasham, of Guildford, and Mr. H. A. Mangles, F.G.S., of Littleworth Cross, Tongham. The former has contributed a paper on "Palæolithic Man" to the Surrey Archæological Society, and has kindly given me much information on the subject. The beds of gravel are from 10 to 40 feet deep, and lie upon the Lower Greensand. They attain an elevation of 364 feet above the mean sea-level, or about 150 feet above the present bed of the river, and are principally dug in pits on the southern or right side ​of the Wey towards Wracklesham, pits which, have furnished several hundreds of palæolithic implements of various forms and sizes. The oval and ovate seem to predominate, hut there have been found not a few fine pointed implements. Associated with the more sharply preserved specimens, are many of dark ochreous colour, with their angles much abraded, which in all probability have been brought down by the old river from beds higher up its valley. Remains of mammoth occur occasionally in the gravels. Some specimens of the implements are preserved in the Charterhouse School Museum. Mr. Lasham informs me of an implement having been found in gravel at Peperharow, of a part of one near Farley Heath, and of one found at Frimley, in the valley of the Blackwater.
The discoveries of palæolithic implements in the valley of the Colne near its junction with the Thames, have already been recorded. In the valley of the Misbourne, an affluent of the Colne, an implement was found in 1891 in digging the foundations of the bridge over the Metropolitan Extension Railway, just north of Great Missenden. It is of a thick ovate form, made of grey flint, rather narrower than Pl. II., No. 18, and with small flat surfaces of the original crust of the flint left about the middle of each side. The specimen is in my own collection.
In the valley of the Gade, in Hertfordshire, a few have been found by myself. The first of these was lying on the surface of a ploughed field near Bedmond, in the parish of Abbot's Langley, at a spot which, though probably 160 feet above the level of the nearest part of the stream, is towards the bottom of one of the lateral valleys leading into the main valley of the Gade, between Boxmoor and Watford. The implement, which has unfortunately lost its point, is remarkably similar in form and size to that from Gray's Inn Lane, Fig. 451. The flint of which it is made has become nearly white and porcellanous on both faces, though more so on one than on the other. In places it has been so much altered in structure that it can be cut with a knife. I have noticed this feature in flints which have lain long in pervious red brick-earth, and this leads me to suppose that the implement may have been derived from some beds of that character at the spot where it was found, though on this point I have no direct ​evidence. In 1892 I found another small implement (4 inches) of rude ovate form, among some stones recently placed in a rut at Bedmond Hill. Here, again, there is no evidence as to the exact geological position. Nor is there with regard to two other implements, both of which I found in 1868, in gravel laid on the towing-path of the Grand Junction Canal, which is there united with the Gade, between Apsley and Nash Mills, about two miles south of Hemel Hempstead. There is, however, no doubt of the gravel in which they lay having been dredged or dug from the bottom of the valley in the immediate neighbourhood. One of them, of grey flint, is a neatly-chipped, flat implement, of ovate outline, about 4 inches long, in form much like Fig. 468, from Lake. The other is imperfect, but appears to have been originally of much the same character, though flatter on one face. It is deeply stained of an ochreous colour, and its angles are considerably waterworn. I have searched in the gravels of the neighbourhood for other specimens, but as yet in vain. I may add that during the formation of this part of the canal, some eighty years ago, an elephant's tooth was found in the gravel, within about 200 yards of the spot where I discovered one of the implements.
Other specimens are reported to have been found near the head of the tributary valley of the Bulbourne, at Wigginton, near Tring.
At Watford, Herts, on the left bank of the Colne, in gravel near Bushey Park, at a height of about 40 feet above the level of the existing river, Mr. Clouston has found several implements of ochreous flint of various types. He has kindly given me a square-ended flake, much like Fig. 426a, from High Lodge, Mildenhall.
Some of the discoveries made by Mr. Worthington G. Smith were in localities within the valley of the Ver, an affluent of the Colne, rather than in that of the Lea, but inasmuch as many of the beds which contained the implements found by him seem to bear but little relation to existing watersheds, and are at no great distance from the Lea, I shall at once proceed to the discussion of the remarkable series of facts which he has brought to light. All details must, however, be sought for in Mr. W. G. Smith's own book, "Man, the Primeval Savage."
​The main source of the Lea is at Leagrave Marsh, about 3 miles N.W. of Luton, and 376 feet above Ordnance datum. On the surface near this place, Mr. Smith found a flat ovate implement, in form much like those from Warren Hill or that from near Dunstable, Fig. 17. He says that it may be neolithic, but that he has found palæolithic flakes, both ochreous and grey, in situ in gravel at Leagrave. At Houghton Regis, 11/2 miles north of Dunstable, Mr. Smith found a fragment of an ovate implement on the surface. Another implement, found so long ago as 1830 by Mr. William Gutteridge, at Dallow, or Dollar farm, 3/4 of a mile west of Luton, is distinctly palæolithic in form.
The most interesting of Mr. Worthington Smith's discoveries have, however, been made on or near the summit of a hill, a good 2 miles from the Lea, and somewhat nearer the Ver. At and around the village of Caddington there are several brickfields, some of them no longer worked. The original surface of the ground in some of these is as much as 550 to 595 feet above the Ordnance Datum. The brick-earth is of great thickness, in places fully 50 feet, and overlies the Chalk. The upper portion of the beds is much contorted, and has in it occasional seams of flint gravel or tenacious clay, in which cream-coloured or brownish palæolithic implements occur. In the gravel, brown, ochreous, slightly abraded implements and flakes are found, and at the base in many cases is the old land-surface or "Palæolithic floor" resting on and surmounted by brick-earth. In one pit were three heaps of flints brought by hand in Palæolithic times from flint-bearing beds either above or in the Chalk. On the Palæolithic floor were numerous sharp-edged flakes, which had hardly been moved from the original place at which they were struck off. Mr. Smith has replaced more than 500 flakes either on to other flakes or on to implements and cores from the same floor.
One old land-surface was full of narrow vertical fissures, due perhaps to the heat of a burning summer sun. While they were still open 18 inches of watery brick-earth, perhaps brought down by a heavy storm of rain, filled up the fissures, covered up the old surface and formed a new surface at a higher level. The upper deposits often resemble contorted masses of half-frozen mud and stone pushed over an old water-laid and perhaps frozen surface of brick-earth. Mr. Smith's view is that Palæolithic ​man lived here by the side of one or more small freshwater lakes, and manufactured his implements upon the spot which eventually, by successive storms and flooding, became buried beneath accumulations of mud. The neighbouring valley on the west was not at that time excavated to its present depth. He considers that the ochreous implements found at Caddington are of earlier date than those of lighter colour found on the Palæolithic floor, and points out that there is, moreover, a difference in the nature of the tools, inasmuch as some well-formed scrapers occur in the brick-earth of the Palæolithic floor, while they are never found amongst the ochreous tools. The difference seems consistent with the probability that the tools for domestic use would be more abundant on the spot where the men of the period were at home than elsewhere. One of the most interesting features of the case is the number of instances in which Mr. Smith has been able to bring together the fragments of implements broken in Palæolithic times, and to replace upon them the flakes removed during the process of their manufacture. Of these he has given a long series of illustrations in his book; those relating to one instance are here by his kindness reproduced as Figs. 455a, b, and c.
| Fig. 455a.—Caddington.1/2 | Fig. 455b.—Caddington.1/2 |
In Fig. 455a is shown a finished implement broken in Palæolithic times, both pieces found separately and now conjoined. Fig. 455b shows the other side of the implement, with three of the flakes struck off during its manufacture replaced, and Fig. 455c reproduces the first view, but shows a fourth flake replaced.
​A good series of these reconstructed implements is in the British Museum.
Fig. 455c.—Caddington. 1/2 Fig. 455d shows an ovate implement from the brown stony clay at Caddington. Fig. 455e represents a scraper, and Fig. 455f a pointed tool from the Palæolithic floor, and an ivory-white sharp-edged implement from the same source is illustrated in Fig. 455g. For all these figures, I am indebted to Mr. Worthington Smith, as well as for very many acts of kindness.
A paper by Mr. Smith on Neolithic and Palæolithic scrapers, re-placed and re-worked, will be found in the Essex Naturalist.
Fig. 455d.—Caddington. 1/2
At Mount Pleasant, Kensworth, to the west, on the other side of the extension northwards of the valley, and at a height of 760 feet above Ordnance datum, or nearly 200 feet higher than the Caddington deposits, Mr. Worthington Smith has found ​some ochreous flint flakes, apparently of Palæolithic age, one of them trimmed.
| Fig. 455e.—Caddington.1/2 | Fig. 455f.—Caddington.1/2 |
At Harpenden, 81/2 miles from the source of the Lea, and not far from the stream, he has obtained a few ochreous palæolithic flakes. At Wheathampstead, a few miles further down the Lea, he also met with a few ochreous flakes in gravel near the railway station.
| Fig. 455g.—Caddington.1/2 | Fig. 455h.—Wheathampstead.1/2 |
In gravel brought from No Man's Land, a common about a mile south of Wheathampstead, the late Rev. Dr. Griffiths, of Sandridge, found two small ovate implements of whitened flint, one of which he presented to my collection. Mr. Worthington Smith, on visiting the spot in 1886, discovered a rude implement of nearly the same character in situ in the gravel, and has lent me the block, Fig. 455h, on which it is represented. He subsequently found an implement with only one edge and the point ​chipped into shape, also in situ. He likewise discovered a third implement and a well-formed scraper in the beds. The gravel at No Man's Land is in a valley along which in former times the Lea or a branch of its stream may have taken its course. Near Ayot St. Peter and Welwyn, in the valley of the Maran, Mr. Worthington Smith has found flakes only. I have recorded the finding of an implement at North Mimms, south of Hatfield.
At and near Hertford and Ware, the Lea receives several other affluents coming from the north. Among these is the Beane, the present source of which is near Stevenage. At Fisher's Green, a little to the north of that town, pointed ochreous implements have been found in the brick-earth by Mr. Frank Latchmore and myself. I have also a rough ovate specimen made from a large broad flake, and found in a brick-field south of Stevenage. Further south, in gravels exposed in a cutting of the Great Northern Railway near Knebworth, some well-formed implements, both pointed and ovate, were found in 1887. I have several specimens, as well as an ovate implement found on the surface in 1890. Still farther south, in a clay-pipe near Welwyn Tunnel, a pointed ochreous implement (4 inches) was obtained in 1896, which Mr. Frank Latchmore has kindly added to my collection.
Palæolithic implements have been found by Mr. Worthington Smith in the gravels of the Lea and Beane at Hertford and Ware, one of them at Bengeo. They are of pointed forms, fairly well made, and much water-worn. He has recorded other implement-bearing gravels a mile north-west of Ware and at Amwell. General Pitt Rivers has a remarkably fine palæolithic implement, which is said to have been found at Bayford, a mile or so south-west of Hertford.
In the valley of the Stort, which joins the Lea near Hoddesdon, two palæolithic implements have been found by Mr. W. H. Penning, F.G.S., in the neighbourhood of Bishop's Stortford. Though in both instances lying on the surface, yet the condition of the implements is such that there can be no doubt as to their having been but recently dug out of the soil; the colour of both is a dark brown, ochreous in places, and the general appearance ​much like that of the implements found in the brick-earth at Hoxne. One of them was found at a short distance from the river, by the side of a ditch cut in a thin deposit of valley brick-earth, about a mile north of Bishop's Stortford, and probably had been thrown out with the soil from the ditch. It is 51/2 inches long and 33/4 inches broad, and in form it much resembles Fig. 421. The other is of the same character, but is somewhat broader, and is squarer at the base. It was found farther north, on the sandy surface of a ploughed field, close to Pesterford Bridge.
In 1872 Mr. Penning also found, near Stocking Pelham, five miles north of Bishop's Stortford, an ochreous, somewhat waterworn, oval implement 5 inches in length.
At Flamstead End, one mile west of Cheshunt, and on the right side of the Lea, Mr. Worthington Smith has obtained several implements in the gravels, some of which he has kindly added to my collection. He has also found specimens at Bush Hill Park and Forty Hill, near Enfield; Rowan Tree Farm, Lower Edmonton, and between Edmonton and Winchmore Hill. For his discoveries on the east or left side of the Lea I must refer the reader to Mr. Smith's book, "Man, the Primeval Savage." Suffice it to say that he has found implements in Drift deposits at Plaistow, Stratford, Leyton, Leytonstone, Wanstead, Walthamstow, Higham Hill, West Ham, Forest Gate, and Upton. In the valley of the Roding he has added Barking, East Ham, and Ilford, and farther east again Rainham, Gray's Thurrock, Little Thurrock, Tilbury, Mucking, Orsett, and Southend.
Mr. Hazzeldine Warren, of the Cedars, Waltham Cross, has obtained several palæolithic implements from gravels at Bull's Cross and Bush Hill Park, Enfield, and a few at Hoddesdon. A fine pointed specimen (7 inches) from Bull's Cross is rather like Fig. 459, but is battered at the butt.
From gravel at Grove Green Lane, Leyton, some good pointed implements have been obtained by Mr. A. P. Wire. One of them is 6 inches long.
A thin ovate implement made from a piece of tabular flint was found in gravel at Lake's Farm, Cannhall Lane, Wanstead.
A sub-triangular implement with a heavy butt was found in gravel of the Roding Valley at St. Swithin's Farm, Barking ​Side, and two others at Wallend, one mile west of Barking town. Mr. G. F. Lawrence found an oval implement in situ at Stratford. I have a rude specimen found at Shoeburyness by Mr. B. Harrison.
Returning to London we must notice some discoveries on the southern side of the Thames.
In 1872 General Pitt Rivers recorded the finding of a palæolithic implement and a flake in gravel on Battersea Rise, at the junction of Gray shot Road and the Wandsworth Road; and in an excavation for a new house on Battersea Rise, near Clapham Common, on one of the higher gravel-terraces of the Thames, Mr. Worthington Smith picked up a palæolithic implement in 1882.
Mr. G. F. Lawrence has also found two or three implements in gravel at East and West Hill, Wandsworth, on each side of the Wandle, as well as at Earlsfield. One from the latter place, now broken, must originally have been of very large size. This and another are pointed. He has also found one at Lavender Hill, and a small ovate specimen at Roehampton.
At Lewisham also an implement has been discovered. One of ovate form (4 inches) was found in 1874 in gravel on Wickham Road by Mr. A. L. Lewis, and by him liberally added to my collection.
Further south, in a branch of the valley of the Ravensbourne, on a patch of gravel upwards of 300 feet above Ordnance Datum, Mr. George Clinch, in 1880, found several ovate palæolithic implements, and in subsequent years many more; in all some fifty in number.
About four miles farther east, at Green Street Green, about 250 feet above Ordnance Datum, Mr. H. G. Norman found two palæolithic implements, on the surface of what is now a dry part of the valley of the river Cray, about two miles above its present source. They are both of ovate form, one much like Fig. 420, the other like Fig. 468. Each is about 51/2 inches in length. "The gravel at this spot has afforded remains not only of the mammoth, but also of the musk-ox."
​Mr. de B. Crawsliay has also found about 40 ovoid and pointed palæolitliic implements near Green Street Green.
The valley may be traced upwards for nearly five miles, in a south-easterly direction, to Currie Wood, between Knockholt and Shoreham; and on the border of this wood, not far from Currie Farm, I found on the surface of the ground, in 1869, a well-marked flint implement, in character and size closely resembling that from Swalecliffe, Fig. 462, and stained of a rich ochreous colour. In places there are some ferruginous concretions adhering to the surface, and it has all the appearance of having been derived from the gravel which here not unusually forms the superficial deposit. A part of one of the faces has been lost owing to a recent fracture, and it can be seen that the implement has been formed of what is now a light buff, somewhat chalcedonic, flint, similar in character to that of most of the pebbles in the gravel at Well Hill, near Chelsfield, about midway between Currie Wood and Green Street Green. A subsequent search on the spot, in company with Sir John Lubbock, Sir Joseph Prestwich, General Pitt Rivers, and Sir Wollaston Franks, was unproductive of any more specimens. The remarkable feature in the case is the elevation at which this implement was found, the level of the ground being probably 300 feet above the neighbouring valley of the Darent, and upwards of 500 feet above the sea. Regarding the gravel, however, as connected with the valley of the Cray, and not with that of the Darent, its elevation above the head of the valley is but slight. In 1872 I remarked that it was "necessary that further discoveries should be made in this district, before it will be safe to speculate on the origin of these gravels, and their relation to the superficial configuration of the neighbourhood." Since then, as will be seen in subsequent pages, these discoveries have been made.
Farther down the valley of the Cray than Green Street Green, near Dartford Heath, about half a mile to the south of Crayford Station, Mr. Flaxman C. J. Spurrell, F.G.S., has been so fortunate as to discover, in situ, the beautifully symmetrical implement which, through his kindness, I am enabled to engrave as Fig. 456.
It is of dark, brownish grey flint, in places mottled with white. It is worked to an edge all round, but is less sharp towards the base than towards the point. On one side, near the point, the edge ​has been worn away by use into a curved notch. On the opposite side is a more modern break. It is almost equally convex on the two faces.
Fig. 456.—Dartford Heath. 1/2
Mr. Spurrell informs me that he found this implement lying on its face, at a depth of 8 feet below the surface of the gravel, which is that of the upper level of Dartford Heath, and appears to belong to the valley of the Thames, and not to that of either the Cray or the Dart.
Another implement has been found near the same spot by Mr. C. C. S. Fooks. A little to the north of Crayford, in the brick-earth below an old cliff of chalk and Thanet sands, Mr. Spurrell has found a number of flakes of flint associated with remains of the Pleistocene fauna. He has, indeed, discovered a "Palæolithic floor" on which the ancient workmen lived while they fashioned their tools. Not many of the larger implements were found, but many of the flakes after having been struck off the nucleus had been trimmed at the butt-end. By patience and skill Mr. Spurrell was able to bring many of the flakes together into their original positions, and thus to reconstitute the blocks of flint from which they had been manufactured. In one instance he was able to build up around an implement—broken in old times—the various flakes struck off during its manufacture, and thus to reproduce the block of flint originally taken in hand by the workman. Two hammer-stones were present, made from cylindrical nodules of flint.
It is to be remembered that in April, 1872, the Rev. O. Fisher, F.G.S., found a worked flint, or flake, in Slade's Green Pit, Crayford, beneath a sandy stratum containing among other shells those of Corbicula fluminalis. In 1875 a large broad flake (51/2 inches) was picked up by Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S., in a ​brick-earth pit at Erith. It is figured and described in the Argonaut. Another flake found in 1876 in the same stratum as that in which ten years earlier a skull of a musk ox occurred, has been figured by Professor Boyd Dawkins.
The fauna of the Crayford beds is remarkable, and comprises two Arctic forms, Ovibos moschatus and a Spermophilus, as well as Megaceros hibernicus, Rhinoceros megarhinus, tichorhinus and leptorhinus, Elephas primigenius and antiquus, lion, hyæna, bear, and bison. Professor Boyd Dawkins regards it as Mid-Pleistocene.
Before proceeding to discuss the discoveries that have been made in and near the valley of the Darent, it will be well to follow the course of the Thames a little farther eastward, and record those that have been made in the neighbourhood of North- fleet, opposite Gray's Thurrock. At several places within about a mile of North fleet Station, and to the west of it, especially at Swanscombe, Milton Street, and Galley Hill, gravel has been dug in considerable quantities, and has proved to contain a very large number of palæolithic implements of various forms, among which the pointed type is most abundant. At Milton Street the surface level is about 100 feet above the Thames, and at Galley Hill about 90 feet. It was in this pit, apparently at a depth of about 8 feet from the top of the gravel, that a human skull, or to judge from the presence of both tibiæ, a whole skeleton, was discovered in September, 1888. No formal account of the discovery was given until nearly seven years afterwards, when Mr. E. T. Newton, F.R.S., communicated a detailed notice of the skull and limb-bones to the Geological Society. I was present at the meeting, but it appeared to me that the evidence as to the contemporaneity of the bones with the containing beds was hardly convincing, and I ventured to assume an attitude of doubt with regard to the discovery which I still maintain. There can, however, be no question as to the true palæolithic character of the implements found in the gravels, of which a few are figured in illustration of Mr. Newton's paper.
Leaving the Thames we come to the valley of the Darent, in which, about a mile E.S.E. of Horton Kirby, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., in 1861, found upon the surface, on the top of a hill, a ​small ovate implement about 31/2 inches long, and in form much like Fig. 468.
At Lullingstone, at an elevation of 400 feet, another implement has been found, and a pointed specimen of the Amiens type was picked up by Miss H. Waring on Cockerhurst Farm, near Shoreham, at the level of about 430 feet.
I now come to the numerous and important discoveries made during the last thirty years by Mr. Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham, which, aided by Sir Joseph Prestwich's interpretation of them, have done much to revolutionize our ideas as to the age and character of the Drift deposits capping the Chalk Downs in Western Kent, north of the escarpment facing the Weald.
All around Ightham, at different elevations above the bottom of the neighbouring valley of the Shode, Mr. Harrison has succeeded in discovering palæolithic implements of flint, for the most part of oval or ovate forms, but not unfrequently pointed. Fane Hill, Bewley, Chart Farm, Stone Pit Farm, Stone Street, Seal and Ash to the North may be mentioned among the localities where his search was successful. He has also found nearly fifty implements in the talus of Oldbury Hill.
Some of those from Seal occurred at a height of 420 feet above Ordnance Datum, and on what appeared to be the watershed between the Medway and the Darent. An almost circular specimen formed of ochreous flint and found at Bewley, Ightham, is shown in Fig. 456a.
For full particulars of the localities and their relative levels, the reader must be referred to Sir Joseph Prestwich's comprehensive paper on the occurrence of palæolithic flint implements in the neighbourhood of Ightham, Kent, in which about forty places are mentioned. Since that paper was published, Mr. Harrison, aided by Mr. de B. Crawshay, has extended his researches with the result that many more implements have been found at high elevations to the north of the escarpment of the chalk. These discoveries enabled Sir Joseph Prestwich in another paper on the Age, Formation and successive Drift-stages of the valley of the Darent, and on the origin of its chalk escarpment, still farther to extend his interesting speculations. It is true that he accepts as being ​of human manufacture, flints with bruised and battered edges, which I and some others venture to regard as owing their shape to purely natural causes. But fortunately this does not invalidate his arguments, as in most cases where the so-called "Plateau types" have been found, more or less well-finished palæolithic implements of recognized form, though much abraded and deeply stained, have also been discovered. The evidence of such witnesses is not impaired by calling in that of others of more doubtful character.
Fig. 456a.—Bewley, Ightham. 1/2
The continuous slope now extending from the neighbourhood of the Thames to the summit of the Chalk escarpment, and in many places capped with implementiferous drift, appears to have been continued southward within the human period over a part of what is now the Lower Greensand area, if not, indeed, into that of the Weald; and subsequently the great valley that now intervenes between the Lower Greensand escarpment and the North Downs must have been excavated.
Whatever causes we may assign for the changes in the surface-configuration of the district, it must be borne in on all that the time required to effect them is beyond all ordinary means of calculation.
West of Ightham, at the head of the present valley of the Darent, is Limpsfield, the scene of some interesting discoveries ​made by Mr. A. Montgomerie Bell. These, also, have been discussed by Sir Joseph Prestwich in his paper on the Drift-stages of the Darent valley, already mentioned; but for the following account of the locality I am in the main indebted to Mr. Bell. Palæolithic implements have been found by him and others in the parish of Limpsfield, Surrey, from the year 1883 up to the present time. They are of the usual forms, both pointed and oval, symmetrical and well made, though rarely exceeding 41/2 inches in length. Many of them have been found on the surface of the ground; but in a gravel-pit on the water-shed between the Darent and the Medway, at an elevation of 500 feet above the sea, Mr. Bell has succeeded in obtaining several implements out of the solid bed of gravel, at depths of from 3 to 7 feet from the surface. The gravel is about 8 feet in thickness and covers a considerable area. The late Mr. Topley has pointed out that it presents some features that are unusual in river gravels, and Mr. Bell is inclined to invoke some kind of ice-action in its formation. I content myself with recording these opinions.
Besides the gravel there is a second implementiferous deposit at Limpsfield, on the slope of the Lower Greensand escarpment. Here more than three hundred implements have been found, at elevations of from 450 to 570 feet above the sea, principally on the surface, but also in the brick-earth at a depth of from 31/2 to 5 feet. They have been most frequent on Ridland's Farm, and comprise all the forms that are usually obtained.
Eastward of Ightham, within the watershed of the Medway, implements from the gravels have been obtained at West Mailing.
Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, F.R.S., in 1865, picked up a broken ovate implement about a quarter of a mile S.W. of Marden Church, on the edge of the valley of the Teise, an affluent of the Medway. Though found on the surface, it is of an ochreous colour, and apparently has been derived from some bed of gravel. In the same year, in the valley of the Medway itself, at Sandling, he found a rude, almost circular, implement, which, though on the surface, was also ochreous.
The most important discoveries, however, have been made in the well-known pits near Aylesford, in which some very fine implements have been found. I have several, one of which, of pointed form, with a heavy butt, must originally have been 9 inches long. ​It has, however, had the end broken off. Mr. B. Harrison has given me another thinner and more perfect pointed specimen made from a flat block of flint. Numerous remains of the pleistocene fauna have been found in the gravels.
In 1862, Prof. T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S., found a rude palæolithic implement near Otterham Quay, Chatham, and another at Gillingham, in the same neighbourhood. He also picked up a small oval implement at Tweedale, half-way between Chatham and Upchurch; and one of larger size, 5 inches long, with a rounded point and truncated base, on the railway, west of Newington Station. Prof. Hughes likewise found a rudely-chipped implement in gravel said to have been brought from a pit near the railway-cutting at Hartlip. There may be some question whether the gravels at these latter places would be more properly classed a» belonging to the valley of the Thames, or to that of the Medway. On the north of the Medway, at St. Mary, in the hundred of Hoo, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., found a small, neatly-chipped, pointed implement; and another at Stoke, in the same district, with rounded point, and sub-triangular in form. They are both ochreous in colour, and have their angles much abraded. To the south of Gravesend, at some distance from either the Medway or the Thames, near Meopham, Nursted, and Cobham, he has also found broken implements of palæolithic types.
In the Christy Collection is an ovate implement, 41/4 inches long, in form like Fig. 462, which was discovered by Mr. E. A. Bernays on a heap of gravel at Chatham.
I have also an ovate implement found in gravel at the Engineering School, Chatham, in 1882, by Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S.,. who presented it to me; as well as a good pointed implement found at Chatham by Mr. Worthington Smith.
Farther east. Prof. Hughes found a large implement, which, though wanting its point, is 8 inches long, in gravel said to have been brought from a pit on the hill north of the railway, and half a mile east of Teynham Station; and at Ospringe, near Faversham, Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins found, in 1865, not in gravel, but on the surface, a small, neatly-chipped, ovate implement. In form it resembles Fig. 467, from the Isle of Wight, but is white and porcellanous. I have another fine specimen, from the brick-earth at Faversham, which was given to me by Mr. J. W. Morris of that town. It is 5 inches long, in form much like Fig. 456, but thinner, and it has weathered to a porcellanous white on ​one face, and to a light grey on the other. South of Faversham, at Moldash, Mr. C. E. Hawkins, of the Geological Survey, in 1872 came across a smaller and thicker porcellanous ovate implement lying on the surface of the ground. In the same district, 11/2 miles south of Selling Church, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., has found another small pointed implement of palæolithic character.
Fig. 457.—Reculver. 1/1
​It is, however, in the neighbourhood of Heme Bay and Reculver, that palæolithic implements have been found in the greatest number. The first discoveries in that locality were made in the autumn of 1860 by Mr. Thomas Leech, who had studied in the School of Mines, in Jermyn Street, and who, while searching for fossil remains at the base of the cliff between Heme Bay and Reculver, picked up a flint implement which he at once recognized as analogous in form with some of those from the River-drift of the valley of the Somme. Continuing his search, he found six implements in all, which he placed in the Museum of Economic Geology, in Jermyn Street. One of those is shown full size in Fig. 457, from a block which has already been used in the Archæologia. It is of considerable interest, as having been formed from a Lower Tertiary flint pebble, and not from a flint derived directly from the chalk. The rounded end of the pebble, which forms the butt of the instrument, is admirably adapted for being held in the hand. It is singularly like the implement from St. Acheul, shown in Pl. I., Fig. 9.
On being informed of this discovery, the late Sir Joseph Prestwich and I at once visited the locality. I have also been there on many subsequent occasions. The implements in this case have not been found in their original matrix, but exposed upon the sea-shore at the base of the cliff, between Heme Bay and Reculver, and for the most part at a short distance from the Bishopstone Coast-guard Station. In all, there must have been upwards of a hundred discovered. I have myself found at various times eight specimens. Sir Joseph Prestwich, Mr. James Wyatt, Mr. Whitaker, and others, have also found some. The greatest number, however, have either been found by or passed into the hands of the late Mr. John Brent, F.S.A., of Canterbury, who has supplied a series of twelve or fourteen to the Christy Collection.
A magnificent implement was found near Bishopstone about 1891, and has been brought under my notice by Col. A. J. Copeland, F.S.A. It is rather more pointed than Fig, 472, and is 11 inches long and nearly 6 inches wide towards the base. It rivals in size that from Shrub Hill, mentioned on p. 569.
The majority of the specimens seem to be of the pointed form, of which the implement engraved full size in Fig. 458 offers a fine example. It was found by myself in 1861, and has already been figured in the Archæologia, as has also Fig. 459, the original of which was found by Sir Joseph Prestwich.
Fig. 458.—Near Reculver. 1/1
Fig. 459.—Near Reculver. 1/1
​is shown in Fig. 460.
Fig. 460.—Reculver. 1/2
It is slightly curved in the direction of its length, and has a remarkably thick butt. The original of Fig. 461 is in the Christy Collection, and has been made from a broad flake, which has subsequently been chipped into an oval form. Its surface is much altered in structure, and has become mottled and ochreous. In general character this instrument much resembles the large broad flakes from the gravel at Montiers, near Amiens, but it has been chipped to a more symmetrical outline than that which they usually present. Another, of much the same form, has been found by Mr. Brent, in the gravel at Canterbury. An engraving of another pointed implement from Reculver is given in Once a Week. A few specimens have been found of oval or ovate, and of sub-triangular form, and equally convex on both faces.
Fig. 461.—Reculver. 1/2
Thanks to Mr. F. Rutley, F.G.S., I have a small ochreous oval implement, which he found on the shore 11/2 miles west of Reculver.
Though the implements are usually found on the sea-shore at the foot of the cliff, there can be no doubt of their being derived from the gravels at its summit. They are generally somewhat worn by the action of the waves, but occasionally they have preserved their edges quite sharp, and their angles unabraded, so that they could not have been many days upon the shore, and must have been quite recently derived from the cliff. I have, indeed, been informed by a coastguard-man that in ​1884 he found an implement in situ in the gravel on the cliff somewhat west of Old Haven Gap. Many of them are stained of the same ochreous colour as the other flints in the gravel, and I have, moreover, in one instance, found the point of an implement on the surface a short distance inland. Dr. G. D. Gibb, F.G.S., also records finding a broken implement on the top of the cliff, halfway between Heme Bay and Reculver. The late Mr. Brent, F.S.A., had a long flake stained of an ochreous colour, and apparently derived from the gravel, which also came from the top of the cliff.
The lower part of the cliff, of which a section has been published by Sir Joseph Prestwich, consists of Thanet Sands and the sandy beds of the Woolwich Series, above which is a local pebbly clay deposit of small extent, and about 8 feet thick, to which he is inclined to refer the flint implements. Its height is about 50 feet above the sea. At a higher level farther west, near Old Haven Gap, are other gravel beds, which he presumes to be of older date. Into this question I need not enter, but for further geological details will refer the reader to my account of this discovery in the Archæologia.
There are pits, in which gravel is dug, near Chislet, where not improbably similar implements will eventually be discovered. I may add that it is difficult to form an idea of the position of the coast-line at the time when these gravels, which appear to be of freshwater origin, were deposited; as, owing to the soft nature of the base of the cliffs, the gain of the sea upon the land has been very rapid in this district, for even since Leland's time—say three and a half centuries ago—it has encroached nearly a mile, but to this subject I shall have to recur.
To the west of Heme Bay, and about midway between that place and Whitstable, is another cliff, near Studhill, where, in the gravel which caps it, 50 feet above the sea, I have found a portion of a molar of Elephas primigenius, and at the foot of the cliff, rather farther to the west, the implement shown full size in Fig. 462. It is stained of an ochreous colour to some depth, and its surface is much altered in structure. Sir Joseph Prestwich seems inclined to refer this implement to a stratum of clay and gravelly sand at a lower level, but its colour is more in accordance with the higher beds. I subsequently picked up another implement of sub-triangular form, deeply stained, and much waterworn at the edges, at the foot of the same cliff. Tusks and bones of Elephas primigenius, are stated to be found near this spot when the cliff falls, as is frequently the case, from its being undermined by the sea. Elephants' teeth are occasionally dredged up off the shore, and I have seen one which was found on the shore at Reculver.
At Swalecliffe, nearer Whitstable, where, in the shingle, an ochreously-stained flint flake was found by my son, and again, nearer Heme Bay, at Hampton, there are more argillaceous freshwater beds at a lower level, and containing land and marsh shells; but these seem to be comparatively modern, and connected with small lateral valleys rather than with the main valley of the Thames, or of any other ancient river.
Fig. 462.—Studhill. 1/1
Immediately east of Reculver lies the marshy valley which separates the Isle of Thanet from the rest of Kent, a valley which is traversed by the river Stour, the principal stream of which passes by Sandwich, eastward, while a smaller channel connects it with a small stream rising to the west of Chislet, and conducts part of its waters northward to Northmouth sluice. The Stour and its tributaries drain an area of upwards of 300 square miles, and not far from its source at Rowton Chapel, near Lenham, Mr. G. Bunyard, of Maidstone, found in 1885 a good ovate palæolithic implement of flint, while near Canterbury, flint implements have been found in considerable numbers in the gravels in the neighbourhood of the river.
Their discovery is due to the late Mr. John Brent, F.S.A., of Canterbury, with whom I have visited the neighbourhood, and who has most kindly furnished me with all the information at his command, including some particulars of the levels, and has allowed me to ​engrave some of his specimens. One of the finest of these is shown in Fig. 463. The flint of which it is composed has become porcellanous, and nearly white. Small portions of the original crust are left at the base, and on one of the faces; the point has been broken off in ancient times. It was found in Thanington parish, on the surface, and not in the gravel, from which, however, it was undoubtedly derived.
Fig. 463.—Thanington. 1/2
Several other specimens have been found in the same manner, among stones gathered from the surface of the slope of the southern side of the valley of the Stour, between Thanington and Canterbury. I have a pointed implement, but unfortunately broken, which was found by the late Mr. Frederick Pratt Barlow, on a heap of stones, when he visited the spot with me in 1868. The gravel beds near Thanington, out of which the implements appear to have come, must be from 80 to 100 feet above the river. Nearer Canterbury, at the back of Wincheap, between the waterworks and the gasometer, pits have been sunk in the gravel, at a lower level, where the surface ​of the ground is about 29 feet above the river, from which the pits are distant about 600 yards; and from this spot Mr. Brent has procured several well-wrought implements of various forms. One of these is shown in Fig. 464. Its surface is lustrous, and of an ochreous colour, and the central ridge is waterworn.
Fig. 464.—Canterbury. 1/2
The gravel, which is about 12 feet in thickness, and rests on the chalk, is coarse, and consists principally of sub-angular flints, with an admixture of rounded chalk, sandstone and ironstone pebbles, with some fragments of fossil wood apparently from the Thanet Sands. The matrix is sandy, and there are some sandy veins. In parts of the pit there is a great thickness of brick-earth or loam. No land or freshwater shells have as yet been found, but some mammalian remains have occurred, among which is a molar of Elephas primigenius. At a lower level, in the gravel exposed by drainage works along Wincheap, I found several flakes; and more recently, in 1870, Mr. Brent has kindly sent me two pointed implements found in gravel in a pit near the new gasometer, where the surface is lower than that near the waterworks by 5 or 6 feet. One is of much the same type as the Reculver specimen, Fig. 458, but of coarser workmanship, and about 6 inches long. The other is less symmetrical, and only 41/2 inches in length. The surface of each is very much bruised and waterworn, and deeply stained of a dark ochreous colour.
There are in my collection numerous other specimens from Canterbury, both pointed and ovate. Many of them are deeply stained and much waterworn. One of these, by the kindness of Mr. Worthington Smith, is shown in Fig. 464a. The white patches marked A show where chips that have been detached before the implement was left in its final position in the gravel have left an unabraded surface. Mr. Smith regards this implement as one of the oldest class, and certainly it appears to have met with many vicissitudes and to have travelled a long way down the valley of the Stour before attaining its last resting-place. Another specimen, from the New Cemetery, is sharp and unabraded, and almost black and unstained. A fine pointed implement 7 inches long, has become white and porcellanous.
Higher up the valley, an implement has been found on the surface near Chilham, by Mr. John Marten, formerly of Easinge. It was at a distance of a quarter of a mile from the river, and at a height of about 100 feet above it.
Lower down, near Wear Farm, between Chislet and Reculver, on the western bank of the North Channel of the Stour, is a pit with sand and loam above the chalk, which has been described by ​Prestwich. In the lower beds of sand, at a height of but a few feet above the sea, he found freshwater shells (including the Corbicula fluminalis), mammalian remains, and valves of the marine shell Balanus, as well as Entomostraca and Foraminifera, characteristic of brackish water conditions. It would appear that we have here another instance of the occurrence of beds with the Corbicula, at no great distance from those productive of flint implements, but at a lower level. From a pit of the same character, on the opposite side of the road, I have seen elephant remains in the possession of Mr. Slater, of Grays, near Chislet.
Fig. 464a.—Canterbury. 1/2
Another palæolithic implement of ovate form was discovered in 1865, on a heap of stones, about 3 miles north of Folkestone, by Mr. W. Topley, F.R.S., of the Geological Survey. It is of course impossible to say from what source it was derived; but it may be mentioned that at Folkestone itself, at the top of the West Cliff, near the Battery, at the height of 110 feet above low-water mark, are some beds of Drift of much the same character as those in which flint implements have occurred in other localities, containing remains of Elephas primigenius, Hippopotamus major, and other mammals, and shells of Helix.
Since this passage was written, a remarkably well-shaped ovate implement has been found in St. John's Road (Radnor Park end), Folkestone, by Mr. Richard Kerr, F.G.S., in August, 1893. It lay in brick-earth at a comparatively low level, and is of flint partially whitened. With it was found a molar tooth of Rhinoceros tichorhinus. It is now, through Mr. Kerr's kindness, in my collection, and is represented in Fig. 464b.
​Proceeding along the southern coast, the next discoveries that have to be recorded are those made to the west of Eastbourne by Mr. R. Hilton. At Bell's Field, Friston, he has found ovate implements, both ochreous and white and porcellanous, and he has given me a pointed implement from Crow Link Gap, East Dean. Although found on the surface and not in gravel or brick-earth, the implements present types which seem to justify their being regarded as of Palæolithic age.
Farther west, in the so-called Elephant bed at Brighton, a bed apparently of subaërial origin, and containing numerous mammalian remains of the Pleistocene period, Mr. Ernest Willett, in 1876, found a well-marked ovate implement, 51/2 inches long, of the type shown in Plate II., No. 11.
Fig. 464b.—Folkestone. 1/2
With these exceptions, if such they be, the valleys of the smaller rivers along the southern coast of England have as yet been barren of discoveries of implements in their gravels, until we come to the Itchen and the Test, which unite below Southampton, and now discharge into Southampton Water. As will be subsequently seen, there is good reason for believing that at the time when these implements were in use, a portion of the ground now covered by this estuary formed the bed of a river, itself a branch of a larger stream, only a small part of the course of which now remains, and that in a greatly altered condition, having been widened out into the Solent and Spithead.
The localities at which palæolithic implements have been found in the neighbourhood of the Itchen and Test are as yet mainly confined to the lower part of their course, namely, near the town of Southampton and along the shore of Southampton Water. The first discoveries in the district were made in 1863, by Mr. James Brown, of Salisbury, who found several implements in the neighbourhood of ​Hill Head, about nine miles S.E. of Southampton; while the earliest discoveries near the latter place are of somewhat more recent date, and due to Mr. W. Read, C.E., until lately a resident of Southampton.
Fig. 465.—Southampton. 1/2
I take the Southampton discoveries first, as being nearer the sources of the rivers. The implements obtained by Mr. Read have come from four different excavations in the gravel, at some distance from each other, three of them on Southampton Common, all of which I have, through his courtesy, had the opportunity of examining in his company, and the other at Freemantle, to the west of the town, about 60 feet above mean-tide level. The first of those on the Common was on the southern side, close by the road leading to the cemetery, where a section of gravel about 6 feet in thickness was exposed. This consisted principally of sub-angular flints and Lower Tertiary flint-pebbles mixed with a few of quartz, in a loose sandy matrix, and with some sandy and marly seams in places. At the base of the gravel was found the pointed implement shown in Fig. 465. It is stained of an ochreous colour, and has a projection on one side, towards the base, like that on the implement from Thetford, Fig. 427. One face is more carefully chipped than the other, and the edges and angles are slightly ​waterworn. The elevation of the ground, at the spot where it was found, is estimated to be 86 feet above the mean sea-level.
In another small pit, at a rather higher level, and close to the N.E. corner of the cemetery, at a depth of 5 feet from the surface, an oval implement was found by Mr. Read, in situ, in the gravel, which here attains a thickness of about 8 feet. In this, as also in the preceding case, a bed of brick-earth or loess has been removed from above the gravel. The surface of this implement is ochreous and polished, and its angles are waterworn. The periphery is much twisted, like that of Fig. 434 from Santon Downham.
At the N.W. comer of the Common, fully half a mile from the first pit, and at a higher level still, where the surface of the ground is stated to be more than 160 feet above the mean sea-level, was the extensive excavation known as the Town Pit. The gravel here retains the same character, but is perhaps rather less coarse; and above it is a thin bed of marl, which separates it from the loess or brick-earth, which in most places has been removed for use. The gravel itself attains a thickness of from 8 to 15 feet, and from "a fall," at about 6 feet from the surface, was picked out an ovate implement 41/2 inches in length, and in form like Fig. 419 from Bury St. Edmunds. Its edges are sharp, and its surface lustrous and stained of an ochreous tint, though on one face the flint has become partially whitened.
Another and still more interesting specimen (51/2 inches), which, like that last described, is now, by the kindness of Mr. Read, in my own collection, has also been found in this pit. It is irregularly oval in form, being somewhat truncated at one end, but bearing a strong general resemblance to that from Hill Head, Fig. 466. Its surface is lustrous and deeply stained all over of a bright ochreous colour, and its angles and edges are much water worn. The significance of this fact, in the case of an implement found in gravel capping a gently sloping tongue of land, between two rivers, the levels of which are now 160 feet below it, will be considered hereafter. Numerous other implements have been found near Southampton, and extensive collections of them are in the possession of Mr. W. E. Darwin and Mr. W. Dale. There is also a series in the Hartley Institution at Southampton. Higher up the valleys of the Itchen or the Test, none of the more highly-wrought implements have as yet been found in the gravels, although it seems probable that they may eventually be discovered, especially if the drift-beds at some considerable height above the present river levels be excavated. I have, however, seen a flake with one face artificial, and with signs of use or wear at the edge, which was found in a gravel-pit near the Fleming Arms, Swathling, a few miles north of Southampton, by Mr. Spencer G. Perceval. In the gravel near this place a molar of Elephas primigenius is recorded to have been found.
I have also a deeply-stained ovate implement from Redbridge, close to Southampton, found by Mr. Worthington G. Smith.
I have already, in 1864, described elsewhere the discoveries which have been made in the gravels on the eastern shore of ​Southampton Water, in the neighbourhood of Hill Head. Since that time a considerable number of flint instruments have been found in this locality, principally by Mr. James Brown, the original discoverer, and his friends.
Fig. 466.—Hill Head.
A large number of specimens from this district are preserved in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury. Among them is at least one of chert. Of those found near Hill Head, a large proportion are flat, oval, and ovate specimens, one of which is engraved as Fig. 466. It was found by Mr. James Brown, in 1863, on the shore between Brunage and Hill Head. It is ochreous, and has its angles slightly waterworn, possibly in modern times, by the action of the pebbles on the shore. Some of the specimens have suffered considerably from this cause; but that the implements are derived from the gravel is proved by the fact of one having been discovered by Mr. James Brown, in a mass which had fallen from the cliff. Some of the ​implements are of the pointed form with straight sides, and a few have the rounded butt of the flint left untouched, apparently by way of handle. One or two well-chipped broad flakes have also been found. The discoveries have extended over about 9 miles of the coast between Warsash and Gosport. Along a great part of this distance there is a low cliff, ranging in height from about 20 to 38 feet above the mean sea-level, and consisting of sands belonging to the Bracklesham series, capped by gravelly beds, in many places 10 to 12 feet thick, and in some, as much as 15 or 16 feet. These beds are almost continuous, and rest on a nearly horizontal base, except where the cliff is intersected by transverse valleys. The gravel consists almost entirely of chalk flints, mostly subangular, among which are some of considerable size, and some quite fresh and unrolled. There are also a few quartz and chert pebbles in the mass, and some large blocks of sandstone of Tertiary origin. Some loamy and sandy beds occur at intervals, but no mammalian remains or land or freshwater shells have, I believe, as yet been found in these beds of Drift. The gravels extend eastward a considerable distance, as may be seen on the excellent map given by Mr. Codrington in illustration of his paper on the Superficial Deposits of this District, as well as on the new Geological Survey Map. Since his paper was written Mr. Codrington has found in situ, in a gravel-pit at Warsash, a mile to the north of Hook a well-wrought, long, pointed implement, at a height of about 46 feet above the mean sea-level. Two implements, one of them much like Fig. 468, found on Southsea Common to the east of Portsmouth, by Lieut. Oliver, R.E., and Mr. G. Smith, are now in the Blackmore Museum.
During building operations at Lee on the Solent, numerous palæolithic implements have been found and preserved by Sir J. C. Robinson, F.S.A., to whom I am indebted for several specimens.
On the other side of Spithead, at the Foreland or most eastern point of the Isle of Wight, the cliff-section shows a bed of shingly gravel, apparently a beach-deposit, according to Mr. Codrington, and between 30 and 40 feet thick, resting in a deep valley in the Bembridge marl. Towards the edge, where the gravel would abut against the marl, it is cut off by a trough filled with brick-earth 36 feet thick, with a few seams of small angular flints. This brick-earth appears to extend some distance upwards over the slope of the marl as well as over the shingly gravel; and among some flints derived from it, at a height of about 80 feet above the mean sea-level, Mr. Codrington found the neatly-chipped ovate implement shown in Fig. 467. Its surface is lustrous and in part whitened, and its angles and edges are sharp and unworn. The possible connection of the bed containing this instrument with others in this district is a matter for future consideration.
The discovery is not, however, the only one that has been made in the Isle of Wight. I have two ovate water-worn specimens, found on the shore at Bembridge, and a thick, pointed implement, found on the beach between the flag-staff at Bembridge Point and the ferry. Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., has also found two implements on the shore at Seaview between Ryde and Bembridge.
​I now turn to the discoveries made in the valleys of the Avon and its affluents, which drain an area of about 670 square miles. The first of these took place in the River-drift beds, in the neighbourhood of Salisbury; beds which were pointed out by Sir Joseph Prestwich in 1859 as likely to contain implements of the same class as those from the valley of the Somme. This prognostication was made in ignorance of the fact that, already in 1846, a palæolithic implement had been found near Salisbury, and had come into the possession of the late Dr. S. P. Woodward, of the British Museum, who at that time put it aside, as having little reference to his own special studies.
Fig. 467.—The Foreland, Isle of Wight. 1/2
In 1863, however, Dr. Humphrey P. Blackmore, of Salisbury, discovered a flint implement in the gravel at Bemerton, near that town; and since that time numerous other discoveries have been made by him in the district, and also by the late Mr. E. T. Stevens, Mr. James Brown, and other explorers resident at Salisbury, the results of whose zealous researches may be seen in the admirable Blackmore Museum. These discoveries have been made in the valleys of the Avon and the Wiley, and also on the spur of land separating those streams, and on that between the Avon and the Bourne. In the valley of the Avon, implements have been found at Lake, about 6 miles above Salisbury; and also at Ashford, near Fordingbridge, about 12 miles below its junction with the Wiley and Nadder at that city. As Lake is the highest point in the Valley of the Avon proper at which, up to the present time, such discoveries have been made in the River-drift, it will be well to notice it first, though it must be mentioned that Mr. F. J. Bennett, of the Geological Survey, has found a good palæolithic implement farther north, near Pewsey Station.
Implements were found at this spot, in 1865, by Mr. Tiffin, jun., of ​Salisbury, but only a few have since been discovered, as the gravel is little, if at all, worked; and it is therefore only on the slope of the hill where the beds have been cut through by the deepening of the valley that they occur. That shown in Fig. 468 is preserved in the Blackmore Museum. It is stained of an ochreous tint, and is worn at its edges. Others of similar form, but white, have also been found, as well as some large broad flakes. It is needless to discuss the character of the gravel, as so many discoveries, of which the circumstances can be better ascertained, have been made in the same neighbourhood. In the valley of the Wiley, at South Newton, about 5 miles above Salisbury, an isolated specimen of a flat ovate implement has also been found.
Fig. 468.—Lake. 1/2
Nearer Salisbury, at Bemerton and Fisherton, the discoveries have been of more interest and importance. They have already, to some extent, been described by myself, principally from information given me by Dr. Humphrey P. Blackmore. The beds of Drift at these two places are at different levels on the slope of the north side of the valley of the Wiley, and of different characters; that at Bemerton being at the higher level, and principally gravel, and that at Fisherton lower, and principally consisting of brick-earth, with a few gravelly seams.
The pit at Bemerton, in which most of the implements have been found, is about a mile west of Salisbury, nearly opposite the new church, and close to the lane connecting the roads to Wilton and Devizes, and nearly midway between them. The gravel consists mainly of subangular flints, with a few Upper Greensand pebbles and Tertiary sandstone blocks in a red clayey matrix. It is 10 to 12 feet ​in thickness, and attains a height of at least 100 feet above the river, though in this particular pit it is only about 80 feet above it. The gravel caps the hill, instead of lying merely in a trough along its side, so that in this particular, the section I have elsewhere given is incorrect. The chalk comes nearly to the surface, lower down the slope, and divides the gravel from a brick-earth deposit continuous with that of Fisherton, farther down the valley.
Fig. 469.—Bemerton. 1/2
The implements found at Bemerton are principally oval, ovate, and ovate-lanceolate. They are for the most part considerably altered in texture at the surface, and many of them are much rolled and waterworn. A few flakes and spalls of flint have also been found. The original of Fig. 469 is in the Blackmore Museum, and is of grey flint, not waterworn. It shows some marks of use on the edge, towards the point, and a portion of the natural crust of the flint remains at the base. In all, upwards of twenty specimens have been found in this gravel, one of them as high as the cemetery. Several others have also been found between that place and Highfield, which is about a quarter of a mile nearer Salisbury than the Bemerton Pit; and in gravel which there caps the hill between the Wiley and the Avon, implements have also been found.
Fig. 470.—Highfield. 1/2
A remarkably small specimen from this place is shown in Fig. 470. It is of grey flint, slightly ochreous, and with its angles somewhat worn. The original is in the Blackmore Museum.
​I am not aware of any organic remains having as yet been found in these upper gravels, though they are abundant in the brick-earth at a lower level, at Fisherton Anger, where, however, flint implements are so scarce that only few have been found; two of these are in the Blackmore Museum. One of them, obtained beneath remains of the mammoth, in 1874, is shown in Fig. 471. The flint of which it is made has become white and porcellanous, its angles are sharp, but along the edges of both sides towards the base there are marks of wearing away by use. The other specimen is only fragmentary, but the flint has assumed the same characters. The edge is like that of Fig. 437; one face of the implement having been flat and the section wedge-shaped.
Fig. 471.—Fisherton. 1/2
The Drift deposits at Fisherton have long been known to geologists, and have been described by Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Joseph Prestwich, and others. They present a great similarity to the implement-bearing beds at Menchecourt, near Abbeville, as has been pointed out by Sir Joseph Prestwich; and this circumstance led us to visit the spot in 1859, with a view of discovering works of man in the beds, though at that time our search was unrewarded.
It is needless for me here to describe the beds in detail: suffice it to say, that resting on a more highly inclined surface of chalk is a deposit, the upper portion of which forms the surface of the present slope on the northern side of the valley of the united Wiley and Nadder. It is in some places nearly 30 feet in thickness, but thins out ​towards the bottom of the valley. This deposit, leaving the superficial soil out of the question, has usually in its upper part a rubbly gravel, with angular and subangular flints, fragments of chert, ironstone, and chalk, mixed with clay and brick-earth, to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet; below that is from 10 to 18 feet of brick-earth mixed with variable masses of flint and chalk rubble, and containing bones and shells, principally in its lower part; below this again, from 1 to 2 feet of fine marl, full of well-preserved shells and a few bones; and at the base, flint and chalk rubble, with sand and clay.
The following species are recorded by Dr. Blackmore as having occurred in these beds:—Canis lupus, Canis vulpes, Hyæna spelæa, Felis spelæa, Bison minor, Bos primigenius, Ovibos moschatus, Cervus tarandus, Cervus (Guettardi?), Cervus elaphus, Equus (four varieties). Rhinoceros tichorinus, Flephas primigenius, Spermophilus (superciliosous?), Lemmus torquatus, Lemmus (norvegicus?), Arvicola (sp. nov.?) and Lepus timidus.
Of birds, some bones of the wild goose, Anser segetum, have been found, and portions of the shells of eggs corresponding to those of the same bird, and of the wild duck, Anas boscas.
The land and freshwater shells consist of Ancylus, Limnæa, Planorbis, Bithinia, Valvata, Pisidium, Acme, Carychium, Succinea, Helix, Limax, Pupa, Zonites, and Zua.
It is worthy of notice in passing, that the presence of the musk ox, the marmot, and the lemming, to say nothing of the reindeer, seems, to point to a colder climate having prevailed at the time of the deposit of these beds, than now. The egg of the wild goose, if such it be, is also suggestive of a more arctic climate; as the breeding-place of this bird is presumably in the far north. This question of climate will come under consideration farther on.
The discoveries at Milford Hill have already been placed on record by Dr. H. P. Blackmore. This hill, the name of which has on the old Ordnance Map been by error assigned to Cricket Down, forms a spur between the valleys of the Avon and the Bourne, and is in fact a continuation of Mizmaze Hill, from which, however, it is cut off by a transverse valley about 30 feet in depth. The summit of the hill rises to an elevation of about 100 feet above the waters of the Avon and the Bourne, which flow on either side of it, and unite below the point of the spur. At the summit of the hill the gravel attains its greatest thickness, which is about 12 feet. It rests on an irregular surface of chalk, occasionally running down into pipes, and thins out towards the sides, ceasing altogether rather more than half way down the hill. In places, there is chalk rubble or gravel in a chalky matrix at the base. The gravel consists principally of subangular flints, a few Tertiary pebbles, and blocks of sandstone, and contains a larger proportion of Upper Green sand chert than the Bemerton gravel—the whole mixed with a variable proportion of sand and stiff clay, and for the most part deeply stained by iron. Many of the large flints are said to present ​no signs of wearing by water transport. On the slope of the hill, near the base of the gravel, a narrow seam of sand was found to contain some land shells of the genera Helix, Pupa, and Zua. No mammalian remains, with the exception of a tooth of horse, have been found in the gravel.
Flint implements have been discovered here in considerable numbers, mostly of the pointed lanceolate form; some of ovate, and other forms, including a scraper, have also occurred. Most of them are now in the Blackmore Museum. More than one specimen is of chert. In about 150 yards of gravel, excavated to form a cellar at Elm Grove, Milford Hill, no less than twenty implements of different forms were found, principally by Mr. James Brown. Dr. Blackmore observes that the implements on the side of the hill are relatively only half as numerous as on the top, and that the condition of their surface varies considerably, the majority being waterworn, but others having their edges and angles as sharp as if they had been made yesterday. The degree of staining also varies, and is not always due to their present position in the gravel, some deeply stained having been dug out of the chalk rubble at the base, where they lay side by side with fragments of flint, which retained their original colour; and, on the other hand, perfectly unstained specimens having been obtained from the ochreous gravel. Several implements were observed, in situ, by Mr. Wheaton, Mr. James Brown, and others; and they were found scattered unevenly through the deposit, but the majority low down and towards the base. Many of them are extremely rude; in fact, as a whole, "ruder and less skilfully made than most of the specimens from the valley of the Somme." Flakes and spalls were found in considerable numbers, and also a few remarkably well-made implements, of which a magnificent specimen is shown in Fig. 472. It is of light- grey flint, with the natural crust on part of the base. The face not shown is roughly chipped, but it has been neatly wrought at the edge to a symmetrical form. Its angles are but slightly rounded. A de- tailed account of the discoveries at Bemerton and Milford Hill, with maps and figures of several implements, has been given by Mr. C. J. Read, of Salisbury.
A scraper-like implement from Britford, a short distance below Salisbury, is in the Blackmore Museum.
About 6 miles below Salisbury, in gravel, near Downton, and at an elevation of about 150 feet above the river Avon, Sir Joseph Prestwich picked up a small ovate implement, in form like Fig. 456, but more sharply pointed and only 3 inches in length. Between the pit, in which it was found, and the river, two gravel-terraces occur, one 80 to 110 feet, and the other 40 to 60 feet, above its level. At Breamore, farther south, a well-shaped pointed implement of chert was found by Mr. E. Westlake in 1888, in gravels 100 feet above the Avon.
A few miles farther down the valley, and about half a mile S.W. of Fordingbridge, at Ashford railway station, is a gravel-pit, which was largely worked for the purpose of ballasting the railway, and in this ​gravel also, implements have been found; first by Mr. Toomer, of Salisbury, in 1866, and subsequently by Mr. James Brown, myself, and others.
Fig. 472.—Milford Hill, Salisbury. 1/2
Several specimens are preserved in the Blackmore Museum, one of which is shown in Fig. 473. It is of ochreous flint, with the angles slightly waterworn. Some of the implements found in this gravel have been much rolled. Mr. J. W. Brooke, of ​Marlborough, has in his collection a series of about forty implements and flakes from Fordingbridge, many of them water-worn.
The gravel here rests upon Tertiary beds, and consists principally of subangular flints, with many Lower Tertiary pebbles, a few pieces of greensand iron-stone, and more rarely quartz pebbles among them. The beds are about 10 feet thick, and their height above the river about 40 feet. Remains of mammoth have been found in them.
Fig. 473.—Fordingbridge. 1/2
Farther down the course of the Avon, palæolithic implements have not as yet been found; and in the basin of the Stour, which joins the Avon at Christchurch, but one discovery has been made. This was of a small brown ochreous implement, made from a large external flake, trimmed into a somewhat kidney-shaped outline, and having its edges worn round, and its angles waterworn. It was found at Wimborne Minster, by Mr. W. F. Tiffin, of Salisbury, in gravel brought from a pit in the neighbourhood, and not in situ. I have searched for implements, but in vain, in some of the pits near Wimborne, though the gravel, especially at Oakley, has all the characters of a deposit likely to contain them.
Though the united Avon and Stour now find their way into the sea near Christchurch, it seems probable, as will subsequently be shown, that they were in remote times affluents of a river running from west to east, and that a portion of this river, now widened out by the sea, ​has become the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The course of this ancient river appears to have been a little to the south and seaward of the present line of the coast at Bournemouth; and some of the gravels which formerly lined its valley now cap the cliffs for some distance between Poole Harbour and Hengistbury Head, and thence on in the direction of Portsmouth.
In these gravels, a very large number of palæolithic implements has been found. The first discovery at Bournemouth was made in 1866, by Mr. Alfred H. Stevens, of Salisbury, and in immediately subsequent years they were principally due to Dr. H. P. Blackmore, my son, P. Norman Evans, Mr. Albert Way, and others. The first implements were found in the gravel, after it had been dug and spread upon the roads; but Dr. Blackmore found an implement in situ, and two or three rough flakes, close to Boscombe Mouth, at almost the highest point of the cliff, more than 100 feet above the sea-level.
Fig. 474.—Boscombe, Bournemouth. 1/2
This implement, which is nearly white and unworn, is preserved in the Blackmore Museum, and is represented in Fig. 474. Numerous implements of other forms have since been found in the gravel dug in the neighbourhood of Boscombe. Among them is a side-scraper 31/2 inches long and of the same type as that from Santon Downham, Fig. 437. It was found by Mrs. E. Sandars, of Bournemouth, who has kindly added it to my collection. A rude chopper-like implement was also found there. One of the finest, however, of all the early Boscombe implements is that shown in Fig. 475, which was found by my son Norman in 1868. It has unfortunately lost a portion near the ​base, through a crack in the stone, but is otherwise perfect. The material is not, as usual, flint from the Chalk, but chert from the Upper Greensand. The surface is slightly ochreous, and to some extent lustrous. I have another implement of chert, but of ovate form, found at Boscombe, as well as some good pointed implements of flint. In the railway-cutting east of Boscombe, I, some years ago, found a flake of flint. Other implements have been found in gravel which is believed to have been dug to the west of Bournemouth, near the Bourne Valley Pottery and the turnpike on the Poole road. That shown in Fig. 476 was found by Miss Way, and kindly communicated to me by her father, the late Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A. It is of flint, now of a milky-white colour. Mr. Way has found three or four other specimens of much the same character. I have two large, rather coarsely chipped, irregularly oval specimens from the same gravels, both found by my son Norman.
Fig. 475.—Boscombe, Bournemouth. 1/2
The beds near the turnpike are from about 6 to 8 feet thick, and rest on a slightly irregular surface of Bagshot Sands. The gravel ​consists principally of subangular and rolled flints, a few Tertiary flint-pebbles, a considerable proportion of small quartz pebbles, and a few fragments of old rocks and Upper Greensand chert; the whole in a sandy matrix, and having in places some sandy seams. I am not aware of any mammalian or molluscan remains having been found in them. They are nearly, if not quite, on the summit of table-land, slightly inclining seawards, and with the valley of the Bourne to the north, with higher ground beyond it and also to the west. The surface near the turnpike is about 130 feet above the mean sea-level.
Fig. 476.—Bournemouth 1/2
Following the presumed course of the ancient river Solent for about ten miles eastward, along what is now the coast, we come to Barton. For the whole distance the land to the north is thickly capped with gravel; and at Barton, on the slope of the cliff, a flat, oval implement, 6 inches long, and in form much like that from Hill Head, Fig. 466, was found by an officer of the Coast Guard, about 1868, and was subsequently presented to the Christy Collection by Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A.
Since that time an astonishing number of palæolithic implements has been found in the district extending from Chuton Bunny by Barton and Hordwell to Milford. I have about sixty specimens from this district in my own collection, many of them very perfect of their kind. For the most part they have been picked up on the shore and on the talus of the gravel-capped cliff, but they have occasionally been found in the gravel itself. A few have been made of Upper Greensand chert, but the majority are of flint. Nearly all the usual types are represented, several by large examples. I have pointed, oval, and ovate specimens, as much as 8 and 81/2 inches in length. Those from the gravel are as a rule sharp and but little abraded, while the condition of those found on the shore depends upon the length of time that they have been exposed to the rolling action of the sea since their fall from the cliff.
​A palæolitliic flake has been found still farther east, at Stone, between Exbury and Calshot Castle.
Assuming the existence of an ancient river Solent flowing at an elevation of upwards of 100 feet above the present level of the sea at Bournemouth, its western sources must have drained much the same basin as that of the rivers now discharging into Poole Harbour; but without at present entering into that question, I may mention the discovery of a palæolithic implement at Dewlish, about 3 miles N. of Piddletown, Dorsetshire, by Mr. James Brown, of Salisbury. It is very neatly chipped, but slightly unsymmetrical in form, one side being straight and the other curved; but in general character it resembles Fig. 430 from Thetford, having been made from a large flake, and showing the original crust of the flint at its base. It was found on the surface, at the top of a high hill, at no great distance from the branch of the Trent or Piddle, which flows past Dewlish. Elephant remains have been found near the same place, which have, however, been assigned to Elephas meridionalis.
Fig. 477.—Broom Pit, Axminster. 1/2
​In the Blackmore Museum there were in 1872 four implements of chert, of oval and tongue-shaped types, found during the erection of the telegraph posts between Chard and Axminster. There was also another thin oval implement of ochreous flint, 71/2 inches long and 31/2 broad, which was found near Colyton, Devon. The exact locality where those first mentioned were found, is unknown; but it appears probable that the gravel, like that at Colyton, belongs to the valley of the Axe, in which I suggested in 1872 that further search should be made.
Such a search has long since been rewarded. In 1877 I recorded some discoveries at Broom, near Axminster, and in 1878 the late Mr. W. S. M. D'Urban gave an account of the ballast pit at Broom, in the parish of Hawkchurch, near Axminster, and close to the river Axe. It was worked in a low hill consisting of chert gravel intermingled with seams of ferruginous and sandy clay, and a section was exposed about 40 feet deep, the base being about 150 feet above the level of the sea, which comes within a distance of about six miles. At that time numerous palæolithic implements of various types had been found in the pit. They were formed of dark Upper Greensand chert, and some were much water-worn, while others were quite sharp and uninjured. Since then very many more have been collected, and a fine series of them is preserved in the Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter. There are also some good specimens in the Horniman Museum at Forest Hill, S.E. I have engraved a typical example of the ovate form in my own collection as Fig. 477.
Some implements from Broom are of large size. I have a very rude specimen that I found among the ballast on the South Western Railway in August, 1877. It is 81/2 inches long and 6 inches wide. Other specimens are small. The ovate type seems to predominate, but the pointed forms are not scarce. A few broad flakes trimmed at the edges, of the so-called Le Moustier type, occur with the other forms.
In the valley of the Culm, at Kentisbeare, near Cullompton, Mr. W. Downes, in 1879, found a chert implement in form like Plate II., Fig. 17.
With the exception of those from the bone-caves of Devonshire, no palæolithic implements have as yet been found farther west in Britain.
* ↑ See Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1860, p. 277—1864, 247; Evans, Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 280; vol. xxxix, p. 57. Sir J. Lubbock, "Preh. Times," p. 349. Nat. Hist. Rev. (1862), p. 244. Sir C. Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 93. Wilson, "Prehist. Man," vol. i. p. 105. Falconer, "Palæont. Mem.," vol. ii. p. 596. London Review, Jan., 1860; Gentleman's Magazine, March and April, 1861; Blackwood's Magazine, Oct., 1860; Quarterly Review, Oct., 1863; Edinburgh Review, July, 1863; Proc. Royal Inst., Feb, 26, 1864, &c. It seems needless now (1897) to add to these references.
* ↑ "Mémoire sur des Instruments en Silex trouvés à St. Acheul, près Amiens."
* ↑ "Pal. Mem.," vol. ii. p. 597.
* ↑ P. Salmon, "Dict. Pal. du Dép. de l'Aube," 1882, p. 179.
* ↑ Matériaux, vol. xiii., 1878, p. 22; vol. xvi., 1881, p. 329, 410. E. Chouquet, "Les Silex taillés de Chelles," 4to, 1883.
* ↑ L'Anthropologie, vol. vi., 1895, p. 497.
* ↑ Cochet, "Seine Inéfrieure," p. 248.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 503.
* ↑ G. Dumoutier, 1882.
* ↑ Gosselet, Lille, 1891.
* ↑ "Mus. Préh.," 44, 46. Mat., vol. viii., 1873, pp. 163, 245.
* ↑ Rev. Arch. du Midi de la France, 1868. Mat., vol. xiii., 1878, 40.
* ↑ Bull. Soc. Ant. de Brux., vol. xiii. 1894-5.
* ↑ Ann. Soc. Arch. de Brux. vol. v. p. 145. Rev. des Quest. scient., July, 1891. See also Cong. Préh. Bruxelles, 1872, p. 250, and Cong. Arch. de Brux., 1891, p. 538.
* ↑ Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xxiv., 1892, p. 366. Mitth. d'Ant. Ges. in Wien, N. S., vol. xiii., 1893, p. 204. L'Anthropologie, vol. viii., 1897, p. 53.
* ↑ Cong. Préh. Buda-Pest, 1876, p. 33.
* ↑ Mitth. d'Anth. Ges. in Wien, N. S. vol. xiii. 1893, p. 77.
* ↑ L'Anthrop., vol. vi. 1895, p. 1. De Baye, "Rapport sur les découvertes de M. Savenkow dans la Siberie Orient.," 1894.
* ↑ Nicolucci, Rendiconte dell' Accad. di Napoli, August, 1868. Rossi, Rev. Arch., vol. xvi. p. 48. Ceselli, "Stromenti in Silice di Roma," 1866. Macmillan's Magazine, September. 1867.
* ↑ Concezio Rosa, "Ricerche di Arch. Preist." Firenze, 1871, pl. ii. 1.
* ↑ Arch. per l'Ant. e la Etn., vol. viii., 1878, p. 41.
* ↑ Gastaldi, "Iconografia," 1869, 4to, vol. ii.
* ↑ Bull. di Paletn. Ital., 1876, p. 122, pl. iv. 1.
* ↑ Bull. Soc. Géol. de France, 2 S., t. xx., 1863, p. 698.
* ↑ L'Anihrop., vol. vi., 1895, p. 616.
* ↑ "Ages préh. de l'Esp. et du Port.," 1886, p. 26.
* ↑ "Les premiers Ages du mét. en Espagne," 1887, p. 249.
* ↑ Cong. préh. Lisbonne, 1880, p. 237.
* ↑ "Ages préh. de l'Esp. et du Port," 1886, p. 30.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 18.
* ↑ "Rivers and their Catchment Basins."
* ↑ Athenæum, April 4, 1863, p. 459.
* ↑ Wyatt in Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii., p. 113; xx. ,p. 187. Geologist, vol. iv. p. 242. See also Bedfordshire Archit. and Archæol. Soc. Trans., 1861 and 1862. Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 253. Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii., p. 366. Evans, Arch., vol. xxxix. p. 69. Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 163.
* ↑ Matt. Paris, "Vit. Offæ II.," p. 32.
* ↑ Walsingham, "Hist. Ang.," s. a. 1399.
* ↑ Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 254.
* ↑ Prestwich, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii., p. 367.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii., p. 113; xx., p. 185.
* ↑ Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 284. Wyatt, ubi sup.
* ↑ Vol. xxxix. pl. iii.
* ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 6.
* ↑ Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 2.
* ↑ Trans. Watford Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. i. p. lxi. Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 7.
* ↑ Several are figured in Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xii.
* ↑ "Man the Prim. Savage," p. 261.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv., 1896, p. 417.
* ↑ A detailed account of Mr. Reid's work is given in the Proc. Roy. Soc., March 4th, 1897, vol. lxi. p. 40.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 35.
* ↑ Seeley, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1866), vol. xxii. p. 475.
* ↑ Antiquarian Comm., vol. ii. p. 201.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., 2nd Decade, vol. v. (1878), p. 400. See also Camb. Ant. Comm., vol. iv. p. 177, where the specimens are figured.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxx. (1884), p. 632.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1866), vol. xxii. p. 478.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxxiv. (1886), p. 521.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1861), vol. xvii. p, 363.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 43.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxxviii. p. 208.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xiv. p. 51, pl. iv.-vi. "Man the Primeval Savage," p. 280.
* ↑ Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 253. See also Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1861), vol. xvii. p. 364. Evans, Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 302; vol. xxxix. p. 63. Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 169.
* ↑ "Rel. Aquit.," A. pl. v.
* ↑ "Rel. Aquit.," A. pl. xvii. 3, 4.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Suff. Inst. of Arch. and N. H., vol. i. p. 4.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1866), vol. xxii. p. 567; (1867), vol. xxiii. p. 45.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. pp. 272, 449.
* ↑ Mr. Trigg (Quar. Journ. Suff. Inst., vol. i. p. 5) gives the following section:—1. Surface soil1 foot.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2. Yellow sand, slightly argillaceous, interspersed with ferruginous seams and layers of small flint shingle5 to 7 feet.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3. Slightly rolled and sub-angular flints in an ochreous sandy matrix, with seams of silt and chalky detritus—variable6 to 9 „................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4. A similar matrix, with larger chalky patches, large masses of flint but slightly broken, and some sub-angular flints—variable6 to 9 „................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ It is in No. 3 that the implements are usually met with.
* ↑ Mr. Flower is mistaken in saying that these are some feet above the gravel in which the implements occur. Implements are found both above and below such seams, though for the most part towards the base of the gravel.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 431.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1867), vol. xxiii. p. 47.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xxxix. p. 77.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S. (1867), vol. xxiii. pp. 49, 52.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Suff. Inst., vol. i. p. 4.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. pl. xx.
* ↑ See an article, "On some Cavities in the Gravel of the Little Ouse," Geol. Mag., vol. v. p. 443.
* ↑ Franks, Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv. p. 124.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. pp. 272, 449.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., vol. v. p. 445.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. p. 449.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. p. 449.
* ↑ Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., vol. iii. p. 285.
* ↑ Geol. Survey Mem. "On the Manufacture of Gun-flints," 1879, p. 68. J. Geikie, "Preh. Europe," 1881, p. 263. Miller and Skertchly, "The Fenland," 1868, p. 546, et seqq.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Suff. Inst., vol. i. p. 4.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. p. 452.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. ii. p. 97.
* ↑ This discovery is mentioned in Miller and Skertchly, "The Fenland" (1878), p. 353.
* ↑ Natural Science, vol. x. (1897) p. 89.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxxv. p. 265.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xiii. p. 204.
* ↑ 4th ed., pp. 353, 354. See also Geologist, vol. iv. p. 19.
* ↑ 1860, p. 277; 1864, p. 247. See also Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 166.
* ↑ Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1860, p. 307.
* ↑ Geologist, vol. iii. p. 347.
* ↑ Skelton's "Meyrick's Armour," pl. xlvi.
* ↑ Phil. Trans., 1860, pl. xiv. 6.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xiii. pl. xv.
* ↑ 1876, p. 289
* ↑ Report, 1888, p. 674.
* ↑ Report, 1895, p. 679.
* ↑ Report, 1895, p. lxxxvi.
* ↑ Report, 1896, p. 400. Essex Nat., vol. ix., p. 245.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. ii. p. 187.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. vi. p. 78.
* ↑ Vol. i. p. lxiv.
* ↑ Vol. xxxviii. p. 301. See also Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 160. Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 352. "Horæ Ferales," p. 132, pl. i. 21. Dawkins, "Early Man in Brit.," 1880, p. 156.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 564.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxix. p. 15.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 564.
* ↑ Stanford, 1894.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xi. p. 107.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., vol. v. p. 392.
* ↑ Geol. and Nat. Hist. Report., vol. i. p. 373.
* ↑ "Ant. of Man," pp. 161, 124.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., vol. v. p. 391. See also Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. p. 95.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1869), vol. xxv. p. 99.
* ↑ "Man, the Prim. Savage," p. 214. Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 270.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xii. p. 176; xiii. p. 357. Nature, vol. xxv. p. 460; xxvi p. 579. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii. p. 126. Essex Naturalist, vol. i. p. 125.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii. p. 336.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. viii., p. 344.
* ↑ Mem. Geol. Survey, "The Geology of London, &c.," vol. i., 1889.
* ↑ "Man the Prim. Sav.," p. 222, fig. 148.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 225, fig. 151.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 239, fig. 165.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 224, fig. 150. See also Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896. pl. xiii., xiv.
* ↑ Brit. Assoc. Report, 1869, p. 130. He has also kindly furnished me with other particulars.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xxviii. p. 449.
* ↑ J. A. Brown, "Palæolithic Man in N.W. Middlesex," p. 113.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. of Science, vol. viii., 1878, p. 316.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlii., 1886, p. 197. "Palæolithic Man in N.W. Middlesex," London, 1887. Nature, vol. xxxv., p. 555. Proc. Geol. Assoc., June 18, 1887, vol. x., 1888, p. 172. Trans. Middlesex Nat. Hist. Soc., Feb. 12, 1889, Whitaker, "Geol. of Lond.," p. 308.
* ↑ Proc. S. A., 2nd S., vol. xi. p. 211.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. ix. p. 316; 1881, p. 1. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv., p. 153.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. x., 1888, p. 361.
* ↑ "Man the Prim. Savage," p. 241. Nature, vol. xxvi. p. 293; xxviii. p. 617.
* ↑ Tr. Berks. Archæol. and Archit. Soc., vol. ii., 1896, pp. 16, 39, 43.
* ↑ "Pal. Man in N.W. Middlesex, p. 31.
* ↑ Journ. Arch. Assoc., vol. xxxvii. pp. 1, 79. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii. p. 348. Tr. Berks. A. and A. Soc., 1882.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxvi. p. 296.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xlvi., 1890, p. 582. See also Mr. H. W. Monckton, F.G.S., in Q.J.G.S., vol. xlix., 1893, p. 310.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xxiv., 1895, p. 44, pl. iii.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xlix., 1893, p. 321.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xiv., 1885, p. 192.
* ↑ See also Hedges' "Wallingford," 1881, vol. i. p. 29.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 29.
* ↑ Antiquary, vol. xxx. pp. 148, 192. Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1894 (Oxford), p. 663.
* ↑ Evans, Arch., vol. xxxix. p. 72; Prestwich, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1861), vol. xvii. p. 367; Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 161; Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 353.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii. p. 278.
* ↑ Surr. Arch. Coll., vol. xi.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiii. p. 77.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiii. p. 80.
* ↑ Arch., vol. lxxix. p. 73. Prestwich, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii. p. 368. Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 355.
* ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii. pl. xi. 8.
* ↑ Stanford, London, 8vo, 1894.
* ↑ "Man, the Prim. Savage," p. 179.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 91.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 170. Nature, vol. xliii. p. 345.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xl. p. 151.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 582; vol. xxviii. p. 490.
* ↑ "Man the Prim. Savage," figs. 97, 98, 99, pp. 135, 136. See also Essex Nat., vol. i.
* ↑ Figs. 58, 69, 70, and 71, in "Man the Prim. Savage."
* ↑ Vol. ii., 1888, p. 67.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 101, fig. 65.
* ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 4.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 180, fig. 125. Essex Nat., vol. i. p. 36.
* ↑ Op. cit. p. 184.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 165.
* ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 3.
* ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 5.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 184. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. viii., 1879, p. 278. Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 604.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 185.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 214.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. iii. p. 235.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. iv. p. 17.
* ↑ Essex Nat., vol. ii. p. 262.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 367.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xxviii., 1872, p. 462.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xii. p. 230.
* ↑ "Note on the Disc. at Church Field, West Wickham," privately printed. Arch. Cant., vol. xiv., 1883, p. 88. Antiq., vol. ix. p. 213. Clinch, "Antiq. Jottings," 1889, pp. 180, 186.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. xi. p. 164.
* ↑ Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 355.
* ↑ Q.J.G.S., vol. xlvii., 1891, p. 145.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xxxvi., 1880, p. 547.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxxvii. 1880, p. 294, pl. i.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., vol. ix., 1872, p. 268. Q. J. G. S., vol. xxviii., 1872, p. 414. Geol. Mag., 2nd Dec, vol. i., 1874, p. 479.
* ↑ Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1875, p. 175. Nat., vol. xii. p. 202. Proc. W. Lond. Sci. Assoc., 1876.
* ↑ Sep., 1875, p. 263.
* ↑ "Early Man in Brit.," 1880, p. 136.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 135.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlvii., 1891, p. 129, pl. vi.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. li., 1895, p. 505.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 505.
* ↑ Op. cit., p. 523.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xxxix. p. 74; Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 355.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xxi., 1892, p. 246.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlvii., 1891, p. 130.
* ↑ journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xxi. p. 263.
* ↑ Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1891, pp. 363, 652.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlv., 1889, p. 270.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlvii., 1891, p. 126. See also Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xxi., 1892, p. 246; and Prestwich, "Controverted Questions in Geology," 1895.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xi. p. lxxxii.
* ↑ "Geology of the Weald," pp. 193, 194, 297.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xxi., 1892, pl. 18.
* ↑ Archæologia, vol. xxxix. p. 63.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii. p. 365. Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 161. Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 355. Geologist, vol. vii. p. 118. Once a Week, June 19, 1869. Geol. Mag., vol. iii. p. 335. Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 465.
* ↑ Jour. Anth. Inst., vol. iv. p. 38.
* ↑ Vol. xxxix. pl. i. 1; pl. ii. 1.
* ↑ Vol. iii. p. 501.
* ↑ Geologist, vol. v. p. 333.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii. p. 364.
* ↑ Vol. xxxix. p. 66.
* ↑ Lyell, "Prin. of Geol.," 10th ed., vol. i. p. 523.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xxxix. pl. ii. 2.
* ↑ Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 254.
* ↑ Geologist, vol. iv. p. 391.
* ↑ This specimen is also figured in Once a Week, June 19, 1869, p. 501.
* ↑ "Man the Prim. Savage," fig. 144, p. 214.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xi. p. 110.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 45.
* ↑ Codrington, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvi. p. 537.
* ↑ Geologist, vol. vi. pp. 110-154.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xx. p. 188. See also Lyell, "Prin. of Geol.," 10th ed., vol. ii. p. 560.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 45.
* ↑ Codrington, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1870), vol. xxvi. pl. xxxvi.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1870), vol. xxvi. pl. xxxvi. p. 541.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. xv. p. 72.
* ↑ "Opening of the Blackmore Mus.," p. 29. "Flint Chips," p. 47.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 47.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S. (1861), vol. xx. p. 188. See also Lyell, "Ant. of Man," 3rd ed., p. 519; and Geologist, vol. vi. p. 395.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 47. Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1865), vol. xxi. p. 252.
* ↑ Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. i. p. 25.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1865), vol. xi. p. 101.
* ↑ Phil. Trans. (1860), p. 302.
* ↑ Prestwich, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xi. p. 103. Stevens, "Flint Chips," p. 12.
* ↑ Formerly described erroneously as Bos longifrons.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1865), vol. xxi. p. 250. Arch. Jour., vol. xxi. pp. 243, 269.
* ↑ Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxii. p. 117.
* ↑ Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1872), vol. xxviii. p. 39.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 47.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 28. Codrington, "Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1870), vol. xxvi. p. 537.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 48. Lyell, "Prin. of Geol.," 10th ed., vol. ii. p. 562. Codrington, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1870), vol. xxvi. p. 537.
* ↑ Q. J. G. S., vol. xlix. (1893), p. 327.
* ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 28.
* ↑ Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1877, p. 116. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vii., 1878, p. 499.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., Dec. 2, vol. v., 1878, p. 37. See also Trans. Dev. Assoc., vol. xvi., 1884, p. 501.
* ↑ "Natural Science," vol. x. (1897), p. 224.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., 2nd Dec, vol. vi., 1879, p. 480. Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. xii., 1880, p. 445.