A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



scooped out since the gravels were deposited on the top of the ridge. 

 This valley ends in the wider valley of the River Lark, a river running from 

 east to west ; a river now of small size, but whose valley at this point is 

 about 2 miles wide. The Lark runs at right angles to the ridge and cuts 

 right through it, so that the southern end of the ridge appears as a low 

 escarpment bordering the Lark Valley. No one who stands on this escarp- 

 ment and looks southward across the valley of the Lark can have any doubt 

 that this valley has been formed since the gravels which cap the ridge were 

 laid down ; and that the present river system of this part of Suffolk has little 

 or nothing in common with that which obtained at the time the gravels 

 were formed. 



To sum up the evidence brought forward up to this point ; we see that 

 since the gravels were laid down in a river running from south to north, one 

 side (the west) of the valley containing the river has entirely disappeared, 

 being replaced by a flat plain at an average level of about 80 ft. below the 

 level of the gravels ; whilst the other side (the east) has been cut out by water 

 until the ancient river boundary is replaced by a valley averaging some 60 ft. 

 below the level of the gravels and about a mile wide. 



As has been stated the ridge is capped by gravels for nearly its whole 

 extent ; and in at least four different places these gravels have yielded humanly- 

 worked implements. These four gravels are not, however, all at the same 

 height above the Ordnance datum. Thus the upper surface of those situated 

 at the south end of the ridge — known as the Warren Hill gravels — is about 

 70 ft. above the Ordnance datum, whereas the corresponding surface of the 

 others lies at or above the hundred-foot level. And as they differ in height 

 so do they differ in the character of the implements found in them. The 

 four gravels referred to are known from south to north as: — (i) The Warren 

 Hill gravels (just mentioned); {2) the High (or Warren) Lodge gravels; 

 (3) the Portway Hill gravels ; (4) the Maid's Cross Hill (Lakenheath) gravels. 

 The Warren Hill pits have produced the largest number of implements — 

 certainly over a thousand ; the Maid's Cross Hill pits have been the next most 

 prolific — probably some hundreds ; then the High Lodge gravels, the condi- 

 tions of which are very peculiar and to which further reference will be made 

 presently. The gravels at Portway Hill have not hitherto yielded many 

 implements, and it is therefore difficult to speak very definitely about them. 



In comparing a large series of Warren Hill implements with a series 

 from Maid's Cross Hill, the sharp distinction between them in type and 

 appearance becomes at once evident. The striking characteristic of the series 

 from Warren Hill is that the ovate implement, brought to a more or less 

 sharp edge all round, shows marked predominance over other forms. At 

 Maid's Cross Hill the pointed implement with a massive upper end is in 

 equally marked predominance — a pointed implement of special type. Then 

 again the predominant patina, or colour change due to age, of the Warren 

 Hill implements is a peculiar spotted blue and yellow, very rarely met with 

 elsewhere ; whilst that of the Maid's Cross Hill implements is a light yellow- 

 ish white with perhaps bluish marbling. It is thus, in the case of the great 

 majority of implements, perfectly easy to recognize at a glance from which of 

 the gravels they have come. The implements from the High Lodge gravels, 

 though more or less distinct in form and colour from those from Warren 



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