A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



The age of the extinct or now foreign mammaHa and contempo- 

 raneous man is a matter of much interest and importance ; let us briefly 

 review the evidence. The remains cannot be admitted to be of Pre- 

 glacial or Lower Glacial age, nor of the age of the formation of the Mid- 

 glacial Gravels for various reasons, but most conclusively because none of 

 the deposits of these periods contain any trace of such remains. In like 

 manner and for like reasons we can cut out the Second Glacial period, 

 hence they must be of Mid-glacial or Post-glacial age. Now the river 

 gravels, as gravels, are of course of post-glacial age, and merge almost 

 imperceptibly into the slightly newer Alluvium, an excellent preservative 

 of animal remains, but one which contains only a present-day fauna. The 

 inference that man and the mammoth were contemporaries in the Inter- 

 glacial period thus seems incontestible. Still we have to account for the 

 occurrence of these animals only in the river valleys. The remains of 

 animals do not last long unless quickly buried in non-porous material, or 

 at least where air and water cannot frequently change places, and such 

 conditions would only prevail inland in the alluvial flats of the river 

 valleys. The wash-out of an interglacial alluvium from the basement 

 layers of a valley glacier seems to offer the only adequate explanation of 

 the kind, number, condition and position of the remains. 



River Alluvium 



The river gravel of the central portion of the Nene valley passes 

 upwards into sandy clays or silts containing much organic matter. This 

 is a deposit dropped by dirty waters coming from adjacent hills or more 

 distant parts of the watershed, whereas the river gravel is a residue left by 

 the removal of just such material from a mixed Drift and Alluvium of an 

 earlier period ; hence, although so nearly of the same age as gravel and 

 clay respectively, the difference of fauna proves a great break in time of 

 each as a sediment. For these reasons we have kept the nomenclature 

 of the two more distinct than is common. When the extra-ordinary 

 floods of the declining Glacial age passed into ordinary ones, each left fine 

 sedimentary matter behind to fill up all inequalities of surface, and convert 

 the valley into a dead level — the Great Flood Plane — through which the 

 river now takes its winding course to the sea. 



The Alluvium abounds in remains of vegetation and molluscs 

 identical with those inhabiting the waters to-day ; human remains occur 

 rarely, though a skull is reported to have been found at a considerable 

 depth in it between Castle Station and Hunsbury Hill, Northampton. 

 Near to the Nun Mills, at Northampton, a long bone of an ox (?) was 

 found with a well-bored hole at each end, as though it had been used as 

 a yoke for domestic cattle. At Mr. Martin's brickyard, near Spencer 

 Bridge, Northampton, a bowl with handle cut out of one piece of wood 

 was found, and here too, although the alluvium itself was thin, several 

 large trees lay, apparently stranded in a bend of the old river, and ulti- 

 mately buried by slips of clay from a higher level. The trees were 

 probably all oak, but fruits of other plants were found. The following 



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