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Archaeology of the Submerged Land-Surface of the Essex Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2014

S. Hazzledine Warren
Affiliation:
Essex Coast Sub-Committee of the Fenland Research Committe
Stuart Piggott
Affiliation:
Essex Coast Sub-Committee of the Fenland Research Committe
J. G. D. Clark
Affiliation:
Essex Coast Sub-Committee of the Fenland Research Committe
M. C. Burkitt
Affiliation:
Essex Coast Sub-Committee of the Fenland Research Committe
M. E. Godwin
Affiliation:
Essex Coast Sub-Committee of the Fenland Research Committe

Extract

Collectors of prehistoric antiquities have long regarded the foreshore of long stretches of the Essex Coast between the rivers Stour and Blackwater as a prolific hunting ground, and many notable collections, consisting mainly of flints, have been obtained from this area. It is not the purpose of this paper to record these discoveries in detail, but rather to discuss the circumstances under which the antiquities are found, to summarise the main facts relating to the age of the old land-surface now submerged below the sea at high tide, and in conclusion to relate the facts observed on the Essex Coast to the stratigraphy established for the post-glacial deposits of the Fenland basin.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1936

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References

page 178 note 1 e.g. The Laver collection at Colchester Museum, and the John Hassall collection now on loan at Cambridge.

page 178 note 2 See the bibliography at the end of part I.

page 178 note 3 For further details see Warren, 1908, pl. II; 1912, p. 104; 1919, p. 95, and 1933, pp. 17–19.

page 179 note 1 See Warren, 1911 b.

page 181 note 1 See Warren, 1933, fig. 4, for a sketch plan of the foreshore at Lion Point, Clacton.

page 181 note 2 See Warren, 1912, pl. XII, fig. 6, and 1919, figs. 1, 2.

page 182 note 1 See Warren, 1912, 4, p. 119 and pl. XVII, figs. 2 to 6.

page 182 note 2 One of these [‘102’] that I found in the earlier years of the investigation, was lined with the sherds of a Windmill Hill vessel (fig. 2, no. 1), and I illustrated it with the doubtful suggestion that it might represent a cremated interment. See Warren, 1919, p. 120 and pl. XVII, fig. 8.

page 182 note 3 See Warren, 1911 a and 1912.

page 184 note 1 See Leeds, E. T., Rectangular Enclosures of the Bronze Age in the Upper Thames Valley, Ant. J., vol. XIV, pp. 414 ffGoogle Scholar, and pl. LVII; also Phillips, C. W., Air-photograph of Fields at Barnack, Northants., Proc. Preh. Soc., 1935. 156 and pl. XIXGoogle Scholar.

page 184 note 2 The Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe, fig. 39.

page 186 note * Mr Warren writes the following note on his method of preserving the sherds from the submerged surface:— ‘Some of the pottery is not easy to preserve. Whenever possible I first soak it in changes of fresh water for a week to remove the salt, and then harden with resin-turpentine which I have used since 1914 and prefer to cellulose-acetone (See Warren, , Proc. Geol. Assoc., XXXVII, 1926, p. 225 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). It is hazardous to soak the sherds after they have once thoroughly dried. Where nothing else is possible, I have sometimes been successful in bringing home the sherd embedded in its matrix, exposing it little by little pari passu with hardening it, and subsequently watching it to remove the efflorescence of salt.’

page 188 note 1 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 137 Google Scholar.

page 188 note 2 Nat. Mus. Antiq. Edinburgh, unpublished.

page 188 note 3 Kulturströmungen in Europa zur Steinzeit, 77.

page 188 note 4 S.A.C., LXX, 51 and pl. IX, 9 and 10.

page 188 note 5 Ibid. LXXI, 67, pl. VIII, 17; pl. XI, 48 and 51; Antiq. Journ. XIV, 113, fig. 9Google Scholar.

page 188 note 6 Antiq. Journ. XV, 301 Google Scholar.

page 191 note 1 Pollitt, , Arch. of Rochford Hundred (1935)Google Scholar, pl. XVI, i, and other unpublished examples in Colchester Museum.

page 191 note 2 Abercromby, 1, pl. IX, 76.

page 191 note 3 cf. Abercromby, 1, pl. XIII, 150, for similar cordons.

page 191 note 4 Brit. Mus. Bronze Age Guide, 1920, pl. VI, 1.

page 191 note 5 British Barrows, 404; Proc. Berwick. Nat. Club, v, 195, pl. XIII, 5–6Google Scholar.

page 193 note 1 Quoted by Kendrick, and Hawkes, , Arch. in England and Wales 19141931, 93 Google Scholar.

page 193 note 2 Trans. Neiobury Field Club, VII, 168 (illus)Google Scholar.

page 193 note 3 Antiq. Journ. XIV, 265 Google Scholar; pls. XXIX and XXXIV 2 d.

page 193 note 4 S. Hazzledine Warren collection.

page 193 note 5 Antiq. Journ. XII, 280, fig. 2, 1Google Scholar.

page 193 note 6 Proc. Hants. F.C., IX, 194 Google Scholar and pl. 11.

page 193 note 7 Unpublished material referred to by kind permission of Captain C. Musgrave.

page 193 note 8 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 151 Google Scholar (erroneously considered to be Neolithic B).

page 194 note 1 Ashmolean Mus. Referred to by kind permission of Mr E. T. Leeds.

page 194 note 2 Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1935, 134 Google Scholar.

page 196 note 1 W.A.M. XLVII, 55.

page 196 note 2 W.A.M., XLVII, 267.

page 196 note 3 Antiquity, X (1936), 221 Google Scholar.

page 196 note 4 Cunnington, , Woodhenge, 1929, 118–45Google Scholar.

page 197 note 1 These sherds were erroneously classed as Neolithic B by the writer in 1932 ( Arch. Journ., LXXXVIII, 151 Google Scholar and cf. ibid., 115, fig. 14, no. 3).

page 197 note 2 In a review of Mrs Cunnington's publication of the West Kennet pottery in Antiquity, II, 117 Google Scholar.

page 197 note 3 Woodhenge, p. 150; pl. 41, 4 and pl. 25, 3.

page 197 note 4 Arch. Journ., XCI, 3258 Google Scholar.

page 197 note 5 Arch. Journ., LXXXVIII, 62 Google Scholar.

page 197 note 6 cf. Rosenberg, fig. 167.

page 197 note 7 Antiq. Journ., 11, 227, fig. 6Google Scholar.

page 198 note 1 Antiq. Journ., V, 431 Google Scholar.

page 198 note 2 De Hunebedden in Nederland (1925), Atlas, pl. 154, 89.

page 198 note 3 Op. cit. Atlas, pl. 154, 80; cf. Text, vol. II, fig. 14 for a similar sherd from a round barrow at Noordsche Veld, Zeijen.

page 199 note 1 Antiquity, II, 416 Google Scholar.

page 199 note 2 For Dutch examples, van Giffen, op. cit., Atlas, pl. 153, 48–51, 61, 67, 69, 83·86; for North-west Germany, Reallexikon, VIII, pl. 26, nos. 22–33.

page 200 note 1 cf. Crawford's, map in Geographical Journ., 1912, 186 Google Scholar.

page 200 note 2 See Clark, in Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1936, 23 ff.Google Scholar

page 200 note 3 e.g. the scrapers in Fifth Interim Report in Dorset Arch. and N.H. Soc., XXV, nos. 388 and 391. Mr M. C. Burkitt examined the Maumbury flints with the writer in 1932 and considered them an Early Metal Age series.

page 200 note 4 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., XLII (19071908), 308319 Google Scholar.

page 201 note 1 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., LXVIII, 132 ff.Google Scholar

page 201 note 2 Ibid., LXVIII, 140.

page 201 note 3 Ant. Journ., VII, 115–33Google Scholar.

page 201 note 4 Woodhenge, pl. 26, 1 and 2; reproduced in Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1936, 29 Google Scholar.

page 201 note 5 Skara Brae, ch. VII.

page 201 note 6 Man, 1932, no. 225.

page 201 note 7 This condition I have always called ’peat-staining.’

page 202 note 1 The type occurs, for example, in the later Pennine group of Tardenoisian sites, see Mesolithic Age in Britain, fig. 7, no. 11, and fig. 9, no. 31; in the Wangford Late Tardenoisian, see ibid., fig. 15, nos. 10–11; at Peacock' Farm, in the Ely fens, in a peat level dating from early Atlantic times, see Ant. J., XV, p. 304, fig. 14 no. 64Google Scholar; and in the Late Tardenoisian of Belgium, see Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe, fig. 72, no. 10.

page 204 note 1 I at one time regarded these (like the patinated flints at Stone Point) as earlier than the material from the old land-surface, but my recent work has led me to a change of view. S.H.W.

page 204 note 2 Occasionally the more usual type (curved in plan) is also bent in section, e.g., an example from Elvedon in Ipswich Museum (no. 1932, 93).

page 208 note 1 See The Curved Flint Sickle Blades of Britain,’ P.P.S.E.A., VII, 67 ff.Google Scholar Outlines of the Walton, Dover-court and Hamford Water blades will be found in this paper.

page 208 note 2 I have noted similar sickle blades in the provincial museum for Drenthe at Assen, viz., nos. 1866/I, 1; 1898/3, 6; 1914/III, I, Ia, Ib, Ic; 1920/V, 1.

page 208 note 3 See Derivative Forms of the Petit Tranchet in Britain,’ Arch. J., XCI, 32 ff.Google Scholar

page 208 note 4 Discoidal polished flint knives, their typology and distribution, P.P.S.E.A., VI, pp. 41 ff.

page 208 note 5 The Date of the Piano-Convex flint-knife in England and Wales,’ Ant. J., XII, pp. 158 ff.Google Scholar

page 208 note 6 e.g. Easton Down, Wilts., and Plantation Farm, Cambs.

page 208 note 7 Forty Years' Researches, pl. XXXVII, 302.

page 209 note * The relatively rare plano-convex flint knives were certainly fashionable as grave-goods in the Early Bronze Age, but their earliest appearance cannot be dated with certainty. e.g. They occurred at Grovehurst, Kent, and at Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, in ‘Neolithic’ associations.

page 209 note 1 e.g. Report on an Early Bronze Age site in the South-Eastern Fens, Ant. J., XIII (1933), pp. 266 ffGoogle Scholar; Report on Recent Excavations at Peacock's Farm, Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, Ant. J., XV (1935). pp. 284 ff.Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 Clark, J. G. D., Antiquity, December, 1931 Google Scholar.

page 210 note 2 In Man, 1932, no. 102.