Io6 THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD 



Near by, at Ilford, Palaeolithic implements have been found 

 in both high and low level drift. '"^ 



The patches of high-level drift which extend along the 

 southern crest of the Thames Valley from Wandsworth Common,. 

 over Wartford Heath to Swanscombe Hill, at an average height 

 of about go feet above the river, have been justly rendered 

 famous on account of the enormous quantity of flint implements 

 which they have from time to time yielded. 



From the patch of gravel forming Wandsworth Common,. 

 Lawrence ^^ has obtained a large number of implements at a 

 depth of ten feet. They comprise tongue-shaped implements, 

 scrapers, knives and cores, besides about three thousand flakes. 



In the Swanscombe gravel pits^^ searchers can always find more 

 flakes than they can possibly carry away with them, and there is 

 not a single large flint to be found that has not been artificially 

 chipped. The flakes are mostly rough and heavy, and none 

 show^ any evidence of design in their shape. They would appear 

 to be chiefly the result of the preliminary blocking out of the big 

 flints prior to their conversion into the tongue-shaped imple- 

 ments. Scrapers, spokeshaves, and other flake-tools also occur,, 

 but they are mostly very rude. The better-knowm tongue- 

 shaped implements are found in every stage of manufacture, 

 ranging from the nodule, from which only one or two flakes have 

 been struck, to the finished weapon. These last difl"er very much 

 in size, and exhibit unrivalled diversity of form. Failures and 

 broken implements that have been re-pointed are common. A 

 large number of bones and shells have been obtained from these 

 beds. The Galley Hill patch, now worked away, from which 

 the human skeleton came,^' belonged to this mass of drift. 



Turning to the low^-level drift of this tract, there is Spurrell's 

 remarkable discovery of an old working place at Crayford,^*^ a 

 locality which is also famous for the abundance of its animal 

 remains, which include lemmings and other interesting small 



12 See Martin A. C. Hinton, " Pleistocene Deposits of Ilford and Wanstead District," 

 Proc. Geologists' Assoc, xvi. (iqoo) : and J. P. Johnson, " Palasolithic Implements from Low- 

 Level Drift of Thames Valley," Essex Naturalist xii. (1901). 



13 In •' Working Sites and Inhabited Land Surfaces of the Palaeolithic Period," by J. 

 Allen Brown, Trans. Middlesex Nat. Hist. Soc. (1889). 



14 Some account of these sections is given by H. Stopes in his note " On the Discovery 

 of Neritina with a Pleistocene Fauna, and worked Flints in High Terrace gravels of Thames 

 Valley," Jourii. Anthiop. Institute, xxix. (1901). 



15 See E. T. Newton. " On a Human Skull and Limb-bones found in the Palaeolithic 

 Terrace Gravel at Galley Hill." Quart. Jotirn. Geol. Soc. li. (1895). 



16 F. C. J. Spurrell, "On the Discovery of the place where Palaeolithic implements- 

 were made at Crayford." Q.J.S.S. xxxvi. (1S80), and J. P. Johnson, op. cit. 



