CHAPTER VIII. THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. In entering on this portion of our Records we are passing from the Natural to the Artificial, from the operations of the Creator to the works of the creature. A systematic process of enquiry would shew that, as in geology, so here, the subject-matter lies in layers. We have the prehistoric period concerning palæolithic and neolithic man; then follow the British, the Roman, the Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman strata, or eras; so many have been the elements which have contributed to the moulding of our country and our people, as we find them at the present day. But again, as in geology, so here, we find few traces in our own immediate neighbourhood of the earlier links in this series—the people who preceded the historic Britons. On Twig Moor, near Brigg, in the north of the county, a tract of ground very similar to our own Moor, many flint implements have been found. On an excursion of our “Naturalists’ Union” to that tract, one of the party found “a handful” of stone “knives and finely-chipped arrow heads.” {105a} The members of the same Society, visiting Woodhall in 1893, found on the Moor “patches of pale-coloured sand, slightly ferruginous, and having a considerable number of flints,” but none were found which could be said to shew traces of human use. This, however, is no reason why the visitor to Woodhall should not search for them. That they exist in our neighbourhood has been proved, since a good specimen of flint axe was found a few years ago by Mr. A. W. Daft, on Highrigge farm, near Stobourne Wood, in Woodhall. It is about five inches in length and 1¼ inches broad, and, from its high degree of polish, probably was the work of neolithic man. {105b} Another, smaller, flint celt was found in 1895 by Mr. Crooks, of Woodhall Spa, in the parish of Horsington, near Lady-hole bridge, between Stixwould and Tupholme. Its length was 3½ inches, by 2½ inches in breadth, thickness about ¾ inch. More recently one was found in a field on the Stixwould road by his son, about three inches in length and 1½ inches broad, thickness ¾ inch. In 1904 several finely chipt flint arrow heads, about one inch in length and breadth, were found in the parish of Salmonby, near Horncastle, in a field called “Warlow Camp,” doubtless the site of a prehistoric settlement. The present writer has picked up at odd times some half dozen specimens, bearing more or less trace of human manipulation, but none of them so well finished as those referred to. A farmer residing near the Moor, to whom I recently explained what a flint implement was, said he had noticed several stones of that kind, but did not know that they were worth picking up. Two molar teeth of the Elephas primigenius, or extinct mammoth, have been found in a pit at Kirkby-on-Bain, situated between the road and the canal, about a quarter of a mile north-west of the church; {106a} and bones of Bos primigenius