Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
Mr. Prestwich's attention was called by Mr. Evans to these weapons, as
well as to Mr. Frere's memoir after his return from Amiens in 1859,
and he lost no time in visiting Hoxne, a village five miles eastward of
Diss. It is not a little remarkable that he should have found, after a
lapse of sixty years, that the extraction of clay was still going on
in the same brick-pit. Only a few months before his arrival, two flint
instruments had been dug out of the clay, one from a depth of 7 and the
other of 10 feet from the surface. Others have since been disinterred
from undisturbed beds of gravel in the same pit. Mr. Amyot of Diss has
also obtained from the underlying freshwater strata the astragalus of an
elephant, and bones of the deer and horse; but although many of the old
implements have recently been discovered in situ in regular strata and
preserved by Sir Edward Kerrison, no bones of extinct mammalia seem
as yet to have been actually seen in the same stratum with one of the
tools.
By reference to the annexed section, the geologist will see that the
basin-shaped hollow a, b, c has been filled up gradually with the
freshwater strata 3, 4, 5, after the same cavity a, b, c had been
previously excavated out of the more ancient boulder clay Number 6. The
relative position of these formations will be better understood when
I have described in the twelfth chapter the structure of Norfolk and
Suffolk as laid open in the sea-cliffs at Mundesley, about 30 miles
distant from Hoxne, in a north-north-east direction.
I examined the deposits at Hoxne in 1860, when I had the advantage of
being accompanied by the Reverend J. Gunn and the Reverend S.W. King.
In the loamy beds 3 and 4, Figure 24, we observed the common river shell
Valvata piscinalis in great numbers. With it, but much more rare, were
Limnaea palustris, Planorbis albus, P. Spirorbis, Succinea putris,
Bithynia tentaculata, Cyclas cornea; and Mr. Prestwich mentions Cyclas
amnica and fragments of a Unio, besides several land shells. In the
black peaty mass Number 5, fragments of wood of the oak, yew, and fir
have been recognised. The flint weapons which I have seen from Hoxne are
so much more perfect, and have their cutting edge so much sharper than
those from the valley of the Somme, that they seem neither to have been
used by Man, nor to have been rolled in the bed of a river. The opinion
of Mr. Frere, therefore, that there may have been a manufactory of
weapons on the spot, appears probable.
FLINT IMPLEMENTS AT ICKLINGHAM IN SUFFOLK.
In another part of Suffolk, at Icklingham, in the valley of the Lark,
below Bury St. Edmund's, there is a bed of gravel, in which teeth of
Elephas primigenius and several flint tools, chiefly of a lance-head
form, have been found. I have twice visited the spot, which has been
correctly described by Mr. Prestwich.*
(* "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society" volume 17
1861, page 364.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account