The extensive prehistoric flint mining site of Grime's Graves occupïes high ground near the Southern boundary of Norfolk, at a maximum of 100 feet above O.D. It is set amidst wild undulating breck land, here and there densely clothed in bracken, the extensive belts separated by spaces of close cropped turf, or brown heath, conspicuously sprinkled with white patinated flints, a prodigious number of which are flakes of human production.

Many of the hill-tops are crowned by plantations of hardwood and coniferous trees, but there is no evidence that this lonely land of wide expanses was ever more than thinly covered by native timber and one feels that the country as seen to-day is much as the ancient flint miners knew it, thousands of years ago.

Though now so lonely and isolated, for neither high road nor dwelling exists within a mile radius, it was obviously once the centre of great activity, for the total mined area is not less than 34 acres in extent.

Of this, 16½ acres are occupied by 366 cup-shaped hollows, varying from 12 to 70 feet in diameter, all plainly visible on the surface and each denoting an ancient mine shaft. Over the remaining 17½ acres there are no surface indications to suggest the presence of underlying shafts, but excavations during the last four years have definitely established their existence and proved the area to be closely crowded with mine shafts of small diameter.

Before proceeding to give a description of the silted-up lake of Hoxne, and its contained flint implements, I would wish to express my thanks to Miss Dorothy Garrod, Professor P. G. H. Boswell, Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., Dr. O. Erdtman, Professor Henri Breuil, Mr. Alfred S. Barnes, Mr. Reginald Smith, and to Mr. Guy Maynard, for the help they have given me in my researches during 1924–6 at this spot. I am also especially indebted to the British Association, the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, and to Mr. Henry Balfour, F.R.S. for providing the funds to pay for the labour employed. The work of excavation was carried out under my supervision, by my trained digger, John Baxter, assisted by one of the men employed in the brickfield at Hoxne, and every care was taken to obtain a trustworthy record of the exact position each humanly flaked flint, or other specimen, occupied in the geological sequence.

The implementiferous deposits of Hoxne are justly famous throughout the archæological world. In the year 1797, there was living at, or near, this place, one, John Frere, who evidently took a keen, and remarkably astute interest in the question of the antiquity of man. There is no doubt that then, as now, a brickfield existed at Hoxne, and Frere's attention was drawn to a quantity of flaked flints which were being turned out by the workmen, at a certain level below the brickearth. To realise the significance of what follows, it is necessary to grasp the fact that, in 1797, next to nothing was known regarding ancient flint implements of any kind, and least of all about those which we now know were made by Lower Palæolithic man.

The market town of St. Neots is situated a mile or so off the Great North Road, and on the right bank of the Great Ouse just where it forms the boundary between Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire. It lies at an average height of 55 feet above O.D.

For some years I have visited the pits which are worked in the low level gravels in and near this town and have been successful in obtaining from them a number of Palæolithic implements and flakes, as well as mammalian remains. Nearly all the implements and flakes were found by myself on heaps of gravel recently raised from the pits, but a few, together with all the bones, were found by the workmen, who in some cases were able to give me the level of derivation.

The first pit to be considered is in the town of St. Neots, and is situated in the grounds of Hall Place, Cambridge Street, about 150 yards east of the Vicarage. It is not very extensively worked and gravel is dug to a depth of 9 feet. The surface, which is approximately 50 feet above O.D., is less than ten feet above the level of the river. I have only one definite implement from this site (Plate II., fig. c), which I found on a heap of gravel on the edge of the pit. Flakes, however, number ten. They are mostly rather thick and coarse, and five show some crust. Most of them have little patination except a faint bluish stain near the crust. One is of a dark honey colour, and another has an ochreous patination. Several of these might have been used as scrapers, and four seem to have been struck from a prepared platform. Red Deer, Rhinocerus tichorhinus and Bos or Bison have been discovered in this pit.

This skeleton is almost complete, the only part of importance which is missing being the region of the forehead and upper part of the face. The skeleton is that of a particularly robustly built man, about 5-ft. 5-in. or 5-ft. 6-in. in height, (1.660 M) aged about 60, with severe rheumatic changes in the spine and extreme disease of the teeth. Most of his characters are those of men whose remains are found in round barrows and other British burials which contain earthenware beakers of the bronze age. He is not a representative specimen of the “beaker” type, but most of his features resemble those of that type.

The maximum length of the skull I estimate to have been 188 m.m.; its greatest width is 147 m.m., the width being 78.2% of the length. It is quite true that the skull is longer than is usually the case in beaker men, yet its form as seen in profile, the fulness of the cerebellar region and particularly the massive size of the great enternal occipital crest for the attachment of the neck, are “beaker” features.

The vault is high, its highest point above the ear-passages when the skull is oriented in the Frankfort plane, being 122 m.m. The height of the skull also favours his relationship to the beaker type.

The late W. G. Clarke recorded the occurrence of palæolithic implements in thirty Norfolk parishes, a fact which suggests that the county is exceptionally rich in implementiferous gravels. On detailed examination of the records it is seen that the great mass of the finds lies in two widely separated districts. In the extreme south-west the valleys of the Thet and Little Ouse have long been famous among collectors, and large numbers of specimens were obtained at a time when the making of the Fenland roads caused a demand for the gravel of the district; the fine collections in the Norwich and Thetford Museums testify to the number and beauty of the specimens obtained there. In more recent years the centre of interest has shifted to the north-east, where the hopes, first raised by the discovery by Mr. A. C. Savin of a fine hand axe (Geology of the Country Around Cromer, p. 130) in 1878, have at last been fulfilled by Mr. Reid Moir's recognition of a Chellian workshop on the foreshore at Cromer (“The Great Flint Implements of Cromer,” Harrison, Ipswich, and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LI., 1921, p. 385–418). Apart from these finds, isolated discoveries of importance have been made from time to time, notably the beautiful implement found by Mr. W. R. R. Spelman on the beach at Eccles (P.S.E.A. II., I., p. 156), the Palling platessiform implement discovered by Mr. Randall Johnson, the Chellian side chopper from the Till at Sidestrand by the writer, and Acheulean hand axes from Runton cliff gravels by Mr. G. Maynard. These have all been carefully described and figured by Mr. J. Reid Moir (“Man,” April 1926; J.R.A.I. LI., p. 399; Antiquaries' Journal, April 1923, and P.S.E.A., IV., 1., p. 126; “Nature,” Aug. 16, 1924). A few miles inland at Gresham, the patient and persistent work of Mr. J. Cox has produced a number of finds of the first importance, especially those described and figured in the Proceedings (P.S.E.A. I., III., p. 380, Plate XCVIII; III., II., p. 317, Fig. 78; I., I., p. 118, and I., II., p. 236). Apart from these two border districts, the records refer mainly to isolated specimens, mostly surface finds. Dr. C. B. Plowright reports implements from a pit at Tottenhill, near King's Lynn (P.S.E. A. I., I., p. 118), whilst a fine hand axe of La Micoque type was found by a schoolboy at Salhouse.

By the courtesy of Messrs. Sainty and Halls I was enabled to pay visits to the most interesting palæolithic site at Whitlingham, of which Mr. Sainty has given an account in the foregoing paper.

In the interval between my first and second visits, the cost of excavation had been assisted by a grant from the Sladen Fund. The wonderful series of implements obtained, certainly unique for Britain and possibly for Western Europe, and the interesting geological considerations which flow from the facts recorded, seem to me to be ample justification for the generous action of the Sladen Trustees.

In the preceding paper Mr. Sainty has given a clear and succinct account of the implementiferous beds and their accompanying deposits. Although his description of the geological features is, in my opinion, excellent, I have acceded to his request (unnecessary as it may seem) to add some geological notes on the deposits.

Surface finds are seldom hailed by the student of prehistory with enthusiasm, and it must be confessed that as dating material such finds prove themselves unreliable. There are however, certain exceptions to this general rule, and the finds I am relating below, fall, I submit, under this last category. In point of fact when flakes, implements, cores and calcined flint are yearly brought to the surface in great quantities by the plough over one small area, the more formal objections to surface finds largely disappear.

Through the generosity of the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Fund I have been enabled to continue the investigation of the factory site, the preliminary examination of which was reported in the Proceedings of this Society last year. The “floor” there described was situated on the right bank of the “Sunk Channel” of the River Medway, at a point one mile north of the Church at Lower Halstow. It rested, in part, upon the surface of the London Clay, and, in part, upon the surface of an alluvium which is older than the gravels of the 10-ft. terrace. The covering deposits, consisting of rainwash, peats, and marsh clays, amounted to a thickness of just over six feet.

In area the “floor” occupied some 100 feet by 60 feet and comprised a series of circular patches 3 feet to 4 feet wide and 3 ins. to 4 ins. deep, sunk below the surface of the London Clay. The patches consisted of blackened earth and calcined flints (see Plate I., fig. 2). The flint implements, together with the waste and raw material, occurred more numerously in these patches.

This year the hearths of a further factory site revealed themselves at a point ¼ of a mile north of the Church. They rested upon the surface of the London Clay and were covered by strata, similar both in composition and sequence to those of the northern site.

From the Marine Parade, Tankerton, Whitstable, looking East, one obtains a capital view of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, in which my discoveries have been made which are to form the subject matter of this paper. The grassy cliff at Priest and Sow corner at the end of the road stands at 55 O.D. This height gradually declining round the arc of the bay, to die out entirely in the Long Rock occupying the middle distance and through which the Swalecliffe Brook discharges into the sea. Just beyond, a little to the right, are the disused Swalecliffe Brick Works, with Stud Hill and Hampton lying further back. To the left and edging the horizon, Herne Bay Pier is clearly discernable. The accompanying copy of (Plate I.) the 25-in. Ordnance map of this Tankerton Bay section gives the exact position of the 650 yards from the Parish Boundary Stone eastwards indicated thereon with a X in which are found the gravels and brick-earths which have proved so rich in archaeological treasure trove. The whole of this south-easterly directioned well-drained gently sloping ground, from the Priest and Sow corner to the Swalecliffe brook, forms an ideal camping site. Last April a paper was read by me before the Geological Association, at University College, London, entitled “An Examination of the Contents of the Brick Earths and Gravels of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, Kent,” in which the geological aspect of this section was fairly exhaustively treated, so that in this particular it will be unnecessary for me to do more than give a brief summary of the results of that examination as to the relative age and stratigraphical sequence of the Drift material found here overlying the London Clay.

In the northern part of Ipswich, between the Henley and the Norwich Roads, is situated the brickfield of Messrs. A. Bolton & Co., Ltd., where the Eocene London Clay is excavated, and manufactured into red bricks. The brickfield lies in a small and now streamless valley which has been found to be extraordinarily rich in vestiges of the past races of East Anglia. It has been my privilege to examine and conduct excavations in this valley, for many years past, and a great deal is now known about its geological and archæological history. The valley itself, though so near to the town of Ipswich, presents on its southern side, much beauty and wildness, and is the home of many interesting and beautiful birds. It begins as a slight depression in the plateau to the east of the Henley Road, and gradually deepening, and developing a somewhat sinuous course, joins the main valley of the River Gipping about a mile to the westward. The valley is typical of many such in Suffolk, and owes its initial formation to the melting of the glacier that laid down the Upper Boulder Clay of East Anglia. The water set free during this process would naturally find its way into the main drainage valley close by, and there is evidence, in the form of the valley under consideration, that it did this with considerable rapidity.