22 



Plant-life of the Oxford District 



the City-area, as it also presents the first indication of human occupation of 

 the land. It may thus be regarded as the original precursor of Oxford 

 City in Palaeolithic times; though the site is still beyond the building area 

 of Summertown. 



The base of the terrace is of gravel and larger material with drift pebbles, 

 among which flint implements are found casually in pot-holes on the surface 

 of the subjacent Oxford Clay. The ' Brick-earth ' consists of ' a mild clay ' 

 with a large admixture of fine quartz-sand, with no lime in the upper layers, 

 probably brought across from the denuded top of Wytham Hill, and closely 

 similar to the ' Greensand ' at present found on Cumnor Hurst. The brown iron- 

 coloured sand lies some 20 ft. deep in places, thinning out over the surface 

 of hummocked Oxford Clay. This sand-bank represents the first land exposed 

 in the centre of the Oxford valley, and the long bank of very uniform ordinary 

 gravel of the ' Second ' Terrace subsequently grew southward in the middle 

 line between Wytham and Elsfield. At the edge of the bank the pure brick- 

 earth is mixed with minor layers of clean sand, blue clay, and gravel, as the 

 changing debris of the river-current. The upper surface is also deeply pot- 

 holed, and a few implements of later date have been found in these depressions. 

 The top of the brick-earth is now covered by some 2 ft. of soil debris with 

 small pebbles, etc., expressing the drift and accumulation of forest-land on the 

 gravel substratum over the top of the low hill (230 ft. only) ; though the surface 

 is now cleared, and from arable and pasture land, is chiefly utilized as golf-course 

 and cemetery. 



The flint-implements found in considerable number, considering the small 



area at present excavated, are not necessarily water-borne for any considerable 



distance, since they could only have come from higher up the hills, and may 



have been dropped m sifu. 1 They may have been washed into pot-holes ; but 



the point is where did they come from. From the fact that they are found 



at the base of the Third Terrace, and also at its surface, but not in the 



Brick-earth itself, it would appear sufficiently clear that man was living in 



the vicinity in the milder inter-terrace period before the 'Third' Terrace was 



laid down, and again in the mild period following it. In the latter time 



probably on the bank itself. In such case there can be little doubt that the 



top of the hill became the site of a palaeolithic ' village '. Flaked flints in 



quantity suggest long-continued occupation. It will be noted that the hillock 



commanded the entire valley, and in flood-time would have been a central 



camp of refuge for other animals as well as man. The soil is well-drained, 



and water could be always obtained by digging pits to the clay below. The 



presence of a thin layer of peat with vegetable remains (Bell) suggests at 



one time a backwater accumulating flood-debris. With a valley-swamp, low 



sand and gravel banks, the flood running 5 miles wide, any human occupants 



must have lived in wattle-huts, gone about in wattle coracles, and probably 



lived on wild-fowl ; there was certainly very little else to eat. 2 



The general plan of the river-system by this time was much as it is now ; 



fine alluvial deposits fill the river-bed, with a flood-level broadening out over 



flat expanses, about 3 ft. above summer level. Extreme floods, to recent 



times, practically fill the old basin, following the contour line very closely ; 



though drainage and the improved locking of the river has somewhat 



1 Bell (1904), Q. J. Geolog. Soc., p. 120, strongly emphasizes the local origin of the implements 

 of quarried flint. 



* If it is only possible for a family under present conditions of good husbandry to get a living 

 throughout the year on 30 acres of land ; with no cultivation at all, the area may be possibly as many 

 square miles. Or the problem may be considered from the standpoint of trying to live over the cold 

 and wet winter months in the older parts of Bagley Wood, with no tools but a few flint knives. From 

 tills may be inferred the density of the population, and the ages of such elementary occupation. Nor 

 on the other hand would there have been much feed for Woolly Rhinoceros or Mammoth. Either these 

 animals were with man summer visitors, or their bones have accumulated in flood-debris at drinking 

 places over long ages. The fact that the entire river-valley has been cut out 50 feet deeper since the 

 Third Terrace began, as well as the depression of the entire area, may imply^as many thousands of 

 years, with a flora to all intents identical with that of the present time. 



