In offering some observations on the prehistory of Malta, the fruit of a month's visit to the island in the Easter Vacation of 1927, Dr. Marett disclaimed all intention of contributing positively to the subject, and hoped at most to draw attention to sundry matters standing in need of further investigation. All British archæologists should pay Malta a visit, if only in order to enjoy the experience of visiting its wonderful monuments under the guidance of local experts such as Professor T. Zammit and Dr. G. Despott, who are as kind as they are learned and patriotically keen. Dr. Marett was also anxious to acknowledge his great debt to the Royal Air Force for allowing him to explore Malta and Gozo from the air—a most instructive method not only of taking in the ground-plan of a given site but likewise of viewing the various sites in their geographical relation to each other; while several magnificent series of photographs taken by the R.A.F. in the course of their aerial surveys were most generously placed at his disposal and proved to be archæologically, not less than otherwise, of the greatest interest and value.

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.

An apology of some sort is so usual a preamble to an address, that I might be tempted to court originality by departing from the normal and foregoing the confessional. Circumstances, however, are compelling in my case and I have no opening for escape. In the first place a combination of factors prevented my delivering a presidential address to the Society during my term of office, and for this I owe sincere apologies. I have to ask you in your kindness to accept this as a belated and actually “post-mortem” address from your late president, delivered, as it is, under the aegis of my successor in office, to whom I desire to offer a cordial welcome and sincere congratulations. At the same time I wish to thank the Society most heartily for the high compliment which was paid to me when I was invited to assume the presidency last year. It is difficult to say how very highly I appreciate this kindness and courtesy.

In the second place, my choice of a subject needs at least some explanation and, if possible, justification. I cannot avoid the confession that the topic which I have selected has no direct bearing upon East Anglia in particular, nor, indeed upon Great Britain in general. Having confessed this with all due apologies, I must try to justify my temerity.

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.

On the 26th October, 1908, at the inaugural meeting of this Society, Dr. Allen Sturge, its first president, delivered his Presidential Address. In this he reviewed the situation of prehistory, and more especially of Palæolithic archæology, as it stood at that time, ten years after the death of Gabriel de Mortillet, and forty years after the death of Boucher de Perthes. Dr. Sturge concluded, incidentally, that this country was immeasurably behind France, Belgium, and Germany in the pursuit of our science, a reproach which the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia has since done much to remove. Three years later Colonel Underwood, Dr. Sturge's successor in this chair, gave a further brief outline of recent discoveries in Palæolithic archæology. The general aspect of the subject was thus temporarily exhausted, and the last thirteen Addresses have dealt with some particular aspect of prehistory, or with some special piece of work. To-day, within a few weeks of the twentieth birthday of our Society, I feel that the time has come when it is again legitimate to attempt a more general view. The twenty years which separate us from Dr. Sturge's first Presidential address have not perhaps been marked by any single startling discovery in the region of human palæontology, but they have brought us a great mass of new evidence, much of which is still imperfectly assimilated, and with this evidence they have brought the first signs of a new orientation of our science.

The problem of the transition period between Palæolithic and Neolithic times has long fascinated prehistorians. Much work has been done and a good deal more is known of this elusive era than was the case formerly, though still many things remain obscure. It is proposed here to try and sketch out what has been discovered with special reference to some of the early cultures of Northern Europe and then tentatively to apply this knowledge to our own country. The problem of the surface finds in East Anglia are very intricate and although it is not the province of this paper to concentrate on them, it is hoped that a little light may be thrown on the subject by this study and that some perhaps helpful suggestion may be made.

As is well known, the difficulty that the early prehistorians had to face was the apparent catastrophic change in everything which took place at the end of Palæolithic times. Suddenly the Palæolithic industries, art and fauna cease, and their place is taken —as it then seemed—by the comparatively monotonous Neolithic industries of the so-called Western Circle with domestic animals, pottery, polished stone axes and a more or less modern fauna, showing that the climatic conditions, far from being arctic, had become reasonably genial.

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.

In 1924 at the invitation of Dr. Garson, the official delegate of the British Association, I attended the French Congress for the Advancement of Science, which was being held at Liège, and at his request took over for exhibition a large number of flint implements from various parts of East Anglia. I was much struck by the great interest taken in the exhibits, many of these English examples being apparently new to the audience. A desire was expressed by more than one of the professors present that they could oftener have the opportunity of examining typical tools from this country.

While at Liège I paid a visit to the Archaeological Museum, and also to M. Hamel Nandrin's private collection, with its stores of Neolithic specimens from the ateliers of Sainte-Gertrude, Holland, and this impressed me with the necessity of having examples of tools from Continental sites more conveniently at hand in England for reference and comparison than they are at present. I therefore determined to make an effort to secure for home study, some of the abundant spoil from the Sainte-Gertrude workshops.

The following sites were discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Harry Milton and myself during the summer and autumn of 1926, while I was excavating the Devil's Tower Cave at Gibraltar.

(i) Llanos de la Horadada. This is a surface site, lying on rising ground to the west of the road from San Roque to the Rio Guadiaro, near the seventh kilometre-stone out of San Roque. The Llanos de la Horadada is a group of low hills forming a southern extension of the Sierra del Arco; it takes its name from a tunnel-like cave, the Cueva de la Horadada, which runs through an outcrop of Eocene sandstone about 1 km. to the west of the road.

In a recently-ploughed field lying immediately above the road we found a small number of flint and quartzite implements, two of which, a small disc and a chopper, were unmistakably Mousterian (Fig. II, Nos. 1 and 2). The implements and flakes were all slightly abraded, and those which were made of flint were deeply patinated, some being white and others light brown.

The Kelling Flaking Site was described in the Proceedings of the P.S.E.A., Vol. IV., Pt. II., p. 165–176. During the past year a considerable amount of work has been done in the hope of throwing further light on the problem of the date of the culture. Several thousand specimens have been examined, and, in general, they agree closely in type with those already described. Over one hundred “points,” of which many were damaged, and sixty scrapers have been obtained, whilst nuclei, worked flakes and worked-angle flakes are numerous. No fabricators or geometric forms have been found, whilst microburins, though specially searched for, are still lacking. I am pleased to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. F. H. Barclay and Mr. E. Dyson in the somewhat arduous task of excavating the site.

During 1926 and 1927 my researches under the auspices of the Percy Sladen Trustees were continued upon the Cromer coast of Norfolk, and a quantity of additional evidence relating to the archæological contents of the Forest Bed obtained. The remarkable spreads of flints exposed at low tide upon the foreshore at Cromer, East Runton, West Runton, and Sheringham were again examined, while the Estuarine Beds and the Upper Freshwater Bed of the Forest Bed Series received also some amount of attention.

I have to record my thanks to Messrs. J. P. T. Burchell, H. H. Halls, Guy Maynard, and J. E. Sainty for valuable help during these researches.

The further examination of the large spreads of flint present upon the foreshore at Cromer, East Runton, West Runton, and Sheringham has yielded many new and interesting facts regarding them. These spreads all rest upon the chalk, which along the coast-line between Cromer and Sheringham is exposed in places at low tide. Moreover, though differing in extent, they all present, to the casual observer, a very similar appearance, and are without doubt at the present time being subjected to closely similar physical conditions.