Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/62

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK to on one or two subsequent occasions,' was practically lost sight of for upwards of sixty years. Attention had then been more prominently drawn to the occurrence of worked flints in the Somme valley, and Sir John Evans recalled to notice the flint implements at Hoxne. The researches made by him and Sir Joseph Prestwich with regard to the relation of the implement-bearing deposits to the Boulder Clay have been confirmed by Mr. C. Reid, who (as before mentioned) has proved that the Paleolithic deposits at Hoxne overlie the Boulder Clay, and are separated from it by layers yielding remains first of temperate and after- wards of arctic plants. In 1862 Henry Prigg of Bury St. Edmunds (who subsequently changed his name to Trigg) found flint implements in the valley gravel and afterwards in a black peaty layer at the base of loam or valley brickearth at that locality. Later on he found an imperfect fragment of a human skull in loam at Westley near Bury St. Edmunds ; but the specimen has since been destroyed.^ In the valley of the Little Ouse flint implements were discovered also in 1862, the first example being obtained at Santon on the Norfolk side,' and many have since been found. In this neighbourhood, as remarked by Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly, ' from Paleolithic times to the present day the vicinity of Brandon has been one of the great emporia for flint ' ; but, as before mentioned, the evidence which he brought forward of implements beneath the Boulder Clay in the neighbourhood of Brandon and Mildenhall has not been deemed satisfactory. His early Palaeolithic stage was represented by the Brandon Beds (see p. 19). These he regarded as older than the Boulder Clay, which in his opinion was intruded into and beneath these loamy beds. He recognized them at Mildenhall, Bury St. Edmunds, West Stow and Culford ; * but the deposits may not be all of one age. Paleolithic implements occur in certain gravels which are newer than the Boulder Clay, and which cap the hills about 70 to 120 feet above the present Little Ouse river. They have been found at Brandon Field or Gravel Hill, two miles south-west of Brandon, at Lakenheath Hill, and Portway or Marroway (Mareway) Hill east of Eriswell. The gravels are regarded as old valley deposits, and they probably represent lines of drainage independent of the modern courses of streams. At present they must be regarded as the oldest Paleolithic deposits. With them however may be included the beds at Hoxne, and certain deposits lately discovered near Ipswich by Miss N. F. Layard.^ According to Mr. S. H. Warren the higher gravels of the Little Ouse and Lark, at Santon Downham and High Lodge near Mildenhall, yield implements of a newer type than those of the earlier drainage 1 R. C. Taylor, ' Geology of East Norfolk' (1827), pp. 14, 27. - H. Prigg, Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1866, sections p. 50 ; Joun. Anthrop. Inst. xiv. 51 ; and Proc. Norwich Geo!. Soc. i. 163 ; E. T. Newton, Proc. Geol. Assoc, xv. 257. ^ J. W. Flower, ^mt. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxiii. 45, xxv. 449.

  • 'Manufacture of Gun Flints,' Geol. Survey (1879), p. 65.

' Nature, May 22, 1902, p. 77. 26