The Holbrook news., 1912-03-08
MOST ANCIENT OF MEN
REGENT DISCOVERIES IN ENG
 LAND ARE INTERESTING.
Flint Implements Made Before the Glacial Period of Europe Are Found by an Eminent Arehae-
 oIoaist In Suffolk.

The new discovery in regard to an-
 cient man (of which I am able to
 speak with full confidence since I
 have studied the specimens and the
 localities myself, and have just sent
 an illustrated account of the imple-
 ment to the Royal society," is that of
 flint implements of very definite and
 peculiar shape, in some abundance,
 in a bed at the base of what geolo-
 gists class as Pliocene deposit (that
 is, before the Pleistocene), namely,
 the "Red Graz" of Suffolk We owe
 this most important discovery entire
 ly to MT. J. Reid Moir of Ipswich, who
 found his first specimens in October,
 1909, and after a years careful exami-
 nation of the district and the finding
 of more specimens in crag pits ten
 miles and more around Ipswich, an
 nounced it in a letter to the Times in
 October, 1910. Now that another year has passed more specimens have been found and the matter is beyond dispute.
 Two distinguished geologists, past presidents of the Geological society, have certified that the bed in which MT. Moir's fiints are obtained is cer- tinly the undisturbed basement bed of the Red Graz, so that they may be justly spoken of as due to the work of pre-crag man.
 The implements are not at all like those previously known. They are not hattened, almond-shaped, or kite-like (elongated, triangular or leaf-shaped), as are the large Paleolithic imple- ment (the Chellean, Acheuilian and Moustierian) hitherto known. But they are shaped like the beak of an eagle, compressed from side to side with keel or ridge extending from the front point backward. Their shape may be compared to the hull of a boat with it's keel turned upward and its beak-like prov in front. They are from four to ten inches in length, and all have been fabricated by a few well-directed blows given to an oblong | piece of flint so as to knock of great | pieces right and left, leaving a keel | in the midline, while the lower face is | trimmed fiat
 These implements are, in fact, peaked hammer heads-probably used in the hand without hafting-and ap- piled to the smoothing and dressing" of skins, as well as other purposes. Some are more symmetrical and care fully trimmed" than others. With these, which I call eagles beak inn or the "rostro-carinate type," are found a few other large and heavy sculptured flints of vefy cu- rious shape (like picks and axes) un- like any hitherto known, but certain Iy and without the least doubt clipped Into shape by man.
 The flint implements-our eagles peaks made by men in the relatively warm Coralline Graz daysEwere actu- ally carried of the land by an ice sheet and deposited in the earliest layers of the Red Graz deposit. The Irrefragable proof of this is that very many of the eagles beak fiints are and scored on their smooth surfaces by those peculiar cross-run- ming grooves which we find on a peb- ble from a glaciers "moraine," or stone heap. Nothing but the immense pIcbbuI0 UT In0 BCOue5 emDSOQeQ 1Q one sheet of ice, rasping by slow other stones embedded in another sheet of ice over which the drst very slowly advances. can pro luce these markings.
 The Red Graz marks the beginning ,f the Pleistocene and of the glacial condition of North Europe. A great question, difficult of decision, is whether the earliest river gravels which we know in England and l Trance were as early as the Red Graz. ( ,verlying which are vast marine de ,osits of glacial sands and clays. In ( my case MT. Moir's flint implements ] Ire pre-Crag; they were made before he glacial conditions set in, and are I, luite unlike those found in the river Iravels- The discovery is one which will profoundly interest the "pre-his- orians" of France and Germany, as , yell as English archaeologists and ge- Times.