EARLY MAN THE county of Suffolk offers the nearest approach to an epitome of the Stone Age of man that is probably to be found in the whole world. In this respect it holds to the Stone Age much the same relation that the county of Gloucester does to geology. Probably nowhere in the world is there such a concatenation of geological periods to be met with in a relatively small area as in Gloucestershire. Similarly nowhere probably are so many periods and sub-periods of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages represented as in Suffolk, and more especially in the north- western part of the county. It is true that one important division of the Palaeolithic Period is absent : viz. the MagdaleniaYi, so splendidly represented in Central and Southern France. But this is probably due to the absence of caves in the county. In the Neolithic Period there is an absence of the megalithic monuments so characteristic of the later stages of that period in certain parts of this and of other countries. Absence of the necessary prime material would account for this. But with these two exceptions the whole panorama of the Stone Age is exhibited with extraordinary fullness, and under conditions which raise hopes for the solution of some of the many obscure problems associated with it. To treat of the whole county in detail would require a volume rather than an article. It will therefore be better to confine the main portion of this article to one division of the county, leaving the rest to be described more briefly in the topographical index at the end. For this purpose the north-western section, comprised within the limits of a line drawn from Thetford to Bury St. Edmunds, thence to Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Brandon, and back to Thetford, has been selected. Within this line are comprised some of the richest deposits of the Palaeolithic Age in England, if not in the world, and within it have probably been found a larger number and greater variety of neolithic implements of beautiful workmanship and of fine material than in any other part of the world of equal area. The Palaeolithic Age It will be well to begin with the earlier main division of the great Palaeolithic Age commonly known as the ' Drift ' Period. The name ' drift ' is derived from the fact that with very few exceptions the implements of this period, so far as England and the western half of Europe are concerned, are found in gravels which have been formed at one or more epochs of vast diluvial action, by which the stones lying on the surface of the land have been washed down to form deposits of gravel in valleys ; which valleys may still exist as such, or may by subsequent changes of the surface have ceased 235
