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.[2517]
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 |544| 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.

[Illustration: 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 |545|
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, 4 3∕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.

[Illustration: 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 |546|
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.

[Illustration: Fig. 421.—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.

[Illustration: Fig. 422.—Icklingham. 1∕2]

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 4 1∕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 |547| in its proportions, being 4 1∕2 inches long and
2 3∕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. |548|

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 424.—Icklingham. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 425.—High Lodge. 1∕2]

Among them is an oval implement of a common River-drift type, 4 1∕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.[2518] Besides these, there are several other large flakes
worked along the edge into side-scrapers, and presenting a Le Moustier
form.[2519] 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 |549| into
a segmental edge. Another large implement, 5 1∕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.

[Illustration: Fig. 426.—High Lodge. 1∕1]

[Illustration: 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. |550|

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,[2520] 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. |551|

In June, 1866,[2521] 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,[2522] 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,[2523] 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[2524]
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.[2525] Those
selected for engraving here, are all in my own possession. |552|

[Illustration: 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 |553|
implements in or about the same position. This flat space has been
referred to by the late Mr. Flower,[2526] 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.[2527]

[Illustration: 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 |554|
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 10 1∕4 inches; that of
the Thetford specimen being 8 1∕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.[2528]

[Illustration: 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 |555| 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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
|556| the spot to which the name of Whitehall 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.

Mr. Trigg[2529] 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 432.—Whitehill, Thetford. 1∕2]

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,[2530] 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 |557| 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[2531] 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[2532] type
seems to predominate, though other forms are also found.

[Illustration: 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 |558| 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.

[Illustration: 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
|559| 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.

[Illustration: 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,
4 1∕4 inches long and 2 1∕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 |560|
of the valley of the Little Ouse, or, it may perhaps be added, of
England or France.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 436.—Santon Downham. 1∕2]

The late Mr. Flower[2533] 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,[2534] 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 |561| 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.

[Illustration: 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, |562|
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.

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,[2535] 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 438.—Bromehill, Brandon. 1∕2]

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 |563| 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.

[Illustration: 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 4 1∕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 3 1∕4 inches and the breadth 3 1∕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, |564| 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 440.—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.

[Illustration: Fig. 441.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1∕2]

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
|565| 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.

[Illustration: 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 |566|
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.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 443.—Gravel Hill, Brandon. 1∕2]

On the opposite side of Wangford Fen, rather more than 2 1∕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,[2536] with whom I have examined it. The greater part
of the hill is capped with gravel, in places |567| 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.

[Illustration: 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 |568| 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,[2537] 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.[2538] 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,[2539] to whom flakes from this deposit were |569| 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 underestimated. 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_,[2540] 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 11 1∕2 inches long and 5 1∕4 inches broad near the base. Its
greatest thickness is 3 inches. One face is much more highly ridged
than the 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.[2541] The
heaviest is one formed of quartzite in the Central Museum at Madras. It
is 9 3∕4 inches long and 5 3∕4 wide with a weight of 6 1∕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
|570| 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 445.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1∕2]

[Illustration: 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 |571|
occasionally met with. Towards the point the edge bears all the
appearance of having been worn away by use as a scraping tool.

[Illustration: 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.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 448.—Shrub Hill, Feltwell. 1∕2]

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 |572| 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, 5 1∕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,[2542] 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 4 3∕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,[2543] 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 (3 3∕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
|573| 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.[2544]

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.,[2545] 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 |574| scale in
Lubbock’s “Prehistoric Times.”[2546] 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_[2547] 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[2548]
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 part of the pit which was being worked in 1859 exhibited the
following section:—

 1. Surface soil, with a few flints                        2 feet.

 2. Brick-earth, consisting of a light-brown sandy
 clay, divided by an irregular layer of carbonaceous
 clay                                                     12 feet.

 3. Yellow sub-angular gravel                     6 in. to 1 foot.

 4. Grey clay, in places peaty, and containing
 bones, wood, and freshwater and land shells          2 to 4 feet.

 5. Sub-angular flint gravel                               2 feet.

 6. Blue clay, containing freshwater shells               10 feet.

 7. Peaty clay, with much woody matter                     6 feet.

 8. Hard clay                                              1 foot.

The thickness of these lower beds was ascertained by Sir Joseph |575|
Prestwich and myself by boring, as the pit was not worked below the bed
of clay, No. 4. In another part of the pit we had a trench dug, which
exhibited the following section:-

 1. Ochreous sand and gravel, passing down into
 white sand                                      4 ft. 9 in.

 2. Seams of white and ochreous gravel           1 ft. 8 in.

 3. Light grey sandy clay                        0 ft. 8 in.

 4. Coarse yellow gravel                         1 ft. 0 in.

 5. Grey and brown clay, with abundance of
 _Bythinia_                                      2 ft. 4 in.

 6. Boulder Clay                                 1 ft. 0 in.

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.

[Illustration: 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[2549] 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[2550]
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. |576| 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.

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.[2551]

[Illustration: Fig. 450.—Hoxne.]

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[2552] 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_.[2553] |577|

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,[2554] calling attention to the presence of fossil Arctic
plants in the lacustrine deposits at Hoxne. This was followed, in
1895, by some further[2555] 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,[2556] “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”[2557] 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 reappeared 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. |578|

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,[2558] 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[2559] has found two palæolithic
implements near Felstead; and in 1883, at North End Place, 1 1∕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 |579| 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.

[Illustration: 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 |580| 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
|581| Creswell Crags, a locality which lies within the presumed
non-implementiferous 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 451.—Gray’s Inn Lane. 1∕1]

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 |583| in Hearne’s edition of Leland’s
“Collectanea.”[2560] 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_,[2561] 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[2562] 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,[2563] was, however, slightly larger.
Another implement was found in Drury Lane,[2564] and others from
Jermyn Street and Prince’s Street, Oxford Street, are in the Museum of
Economic Geology.

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.”[2565]

[Illustration: Fig. 452.—Hackney Down. 1∕2]

In the British Museum is an oval implement, formerly in the collection
of the late Rev. Dr. Sparrow Simpson, F.S.A., shown in |584| 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.[2566] The surface of the ground at Hackney Down[2567] is 70
feet above Ordnance Datum, and in 1866 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[2568] 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 subangular
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,[2569] 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,[2570] 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 |585| 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.,[2571]
added _Achatina_, _Bythinia_, _Pupa_, and _Velletia_.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 453.—Highbury New Park. 1∕2]

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
|586| 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,[2572] 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.[2573] 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 subaërial 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.[2574] He has given some interesting sections, showing how
the waterworn, abraded implements underlie those of the Palæolithic
floor which are quite unworn.[2575] Professor Rupert Jones, F.R.S., has
also written on |587| the subject. The best geological account is that
given by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S.[2576]

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.[2577] 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 453A.—Lower Clapton. 1∕2]

The fine ovate implement,[2578] 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.[2579] The edges are still quite sharp, and at one place
there appear to be traces of use. A quartzite[2580] 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 |588|
truncated butt, and has been presented to the Christy Collection by Sir
A. Wollaston Franks, F.R.S. 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 8 1∕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 water-worn, 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 (5 5∕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.

[Illustration: Fig. 453B.—Stamford Hill. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 453C.—Stoke Newington Common. 1∕2]

It will be most convenient to reserve the discoveries in the South of
London and in the valley of the |589| Lea for future pages, and to
proceed up the Thames valley towards its sources.

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.[2581] He has fully described the localities and given
sections of the beds in a communication to the Geological Society.[2582]

[Illustration: Fig. 453D.—Stoke Newington Common. 1∕2]

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 |590| 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.

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 5 1∕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.

[Illustration: Fig. 454.—Ealing Dean. 1∕2]

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[2583] land and freshwater shells. At
|591| 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
hemitæchus_, _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.,[2584] has speculated on the age and character of
the Acton deposits.

Mr. J. Allen Brown, F.G.S.,[2585] 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,[2586] 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,[2587] 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[2588] associated with remains of _Elephas primigenius_. A
pointed specimen from Southall is made of quartzite. At Hounslow[2589]
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,[2590] Taplow,[2591]
Maidenhead, and Marlow. A very broad-pointed implement (5 1∕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,[2592] about 80 feet above the level of the
|592| 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 Redlands beds
have been described by Prof. Poulton, F.R.S.[2593] 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 4 1∕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.[2594] 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,[2595] but in gravel
at Wokingham[2596] a large highly finished pointed implement has been
obtained by Mr. P. Sale.

Some more or less worked flints from the Reading[2597] gravels have
been described and figured by Mr. O. 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 |593| have a fine
kite-shaped specimen of the type of Plate I., No. 6 (5 1∕2 inches),
that was found at Gould’s Heath, East of Wallingford, and two from
Turner’s Court,[2598] 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,[2599] 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 (3 3∕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 1 1∕2 miles north of Oxford, whence many have
been collected by Mr. A. M. Bell,[2600] 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 (8 1∕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 |594| 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 9 1∕2 inches long and 4 1∕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 6 3∕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 (4 3∕4 inches)
like Fig. 422, but more roughly chipped and much waterworn. Another (4
inches) is like Fig. 436, but more pointed. The third (5 1∕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 (4 1∕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.,[2601] 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.[2602] They rest on Wealden Clay, and
in places, on beds of the Lower Greensand. The material principally
consists of sub-angular chalk flints, and |595| 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.

[Illustration: 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,[2603] 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[2604] 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 |596| 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, but
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,[2605] 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,[2606] 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 |597| evidence.
In 1892[2607] 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.”[2608] |598|

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[2609] 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,[2610] 1 1∕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,[2611] 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[2612] 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 |599| 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,[2613] 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;[2614] those relating to one
instance are here by his kindness reproduced as Figs. 455A, B, and C.

[Illustration: Fig. 455A.—Caddington. 1∕2]

[Illustration: 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. |600|

A good series of these reconstructed implements is in the British
Museum.

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,[2615] 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_.[2616]

[Illustration: Fig. 455C.—Caddington. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 455D.—Caddington. 1∕2]

At Mount Pleasant,[2617] 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 |601| some ochreous flint
flakes, apparently of Palæolithic age, one of them trimmed.

[Illustration: Fig. 455E.—Caddington. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 455F.—Caddington. 1∕2]

At Harpenden, 8 1∕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.

[Illustration: Fig. 455G.—Caddington. 1∕2]

[Illustration: 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,[2618] 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,[2619] Fig. 455H, on
which it is represented. He subsequently found an implement with only
one edge and the point |602| 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[2620] 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,[2621] 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,[2622] 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,[2623] 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[2624] 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 |603| 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 5 1∕2 inches long
and 3 3∕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 water-worn, oval implement
5 inches in length.

At Flamstead End,[2625] 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,[2626] 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,[2627] 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,[2628] Cannhall Lane, Wanstead.

A sub-triangular implement with a heavy butt was found in gravel of the
Roding Valley at St. Swithin’s Farm,[2629] Barking |604| Side, and two
others at Wallend, one mile west of Barking town. Mr. G. F. Lawrence
found an oval implement _in situ_ at Stratford.[2630] 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[2631] General Pitt Rivers recorded the finding of a palæolithic
implement and a flake in gravel on Battersea Rise, at the junction
of Grayshot Road and the Wandsworth Road; and in an excavation for a
new house on Battersea Rise,[2632] 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,[2633] in 1880, found several ovate palæolithic implements, and
in subsequent years many more; in all some fifty[2634] in number.

About four miles farther east, at Green Street Green,[2635] 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 5 1∕2 inches in length. “The gravel at this spot has afforded
remains not only of the mammoth, but also of the musk-ox.” |605|

Mr. de B. Crawshay[2636] has also found about 40 ovoid and pointed
palæolithic 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 |606| 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.

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.[2637] 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.[2638] 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 456.—Dartford Heath. 1∕2]

It is to be remembered that in April,[2639] 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 (5 1∕2 inches) was
picked up by Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S.,[2640] in a |607| brick-earth
pit at Erith. It is figured and described in the _Argonaut_.[2641]
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.[2642]

The fauna of the Crayford beds is remarkable, and comprises two Arctic
forms, _Oribos 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.[2643]

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 Northfleet, opposite Gray’s Thurrock. At
several places within about a mile of Northfleet 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[2644]
the surface level is about 100 feet above the Thames, and at Galley
Hill[2645] 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.[2646] 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.[2647]

Leaving the Thames we come to the valley of the Darent, in which, about
a mile E.S.E.[2648] of Horton Kirby, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., in 1861,
found upon the surface, on the top of a hill, a |608| small ovate
implement about 3 1∕2 inches long, and in form much like Fig. 468.

At Lullingstone,[2649] 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,[2650] 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,[2651] 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.[2652]

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[2653] 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[2654] 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 |609| 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.

[Illustration: 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,[2655] the scene of some interesting discoveries |610| 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
4 1∕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[2656] 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 3 1∕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 Malling.[2657]

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. |611| 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 as 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, 4 1∕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
|612| 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, 1 1∕2 miles south
of Selling Church, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., has found another small
pointed implement of palæolithic character. |613|