e 



A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



of similar conditions giving rise to the Lakenheath implements ; destruction 

 of the valley, with excavation of the fen district ; and finally ' Mousterian ' 

 man sitting on the side of the hill thus formed. When the conditions are 

 appreciated the vast periods involved are almost beyond our comprehension. 

 6. After the implements of ' Mousterian ' man had been buried by th 

 gradual accumulation of the 30 ft. (or more) of brick-earth, a recurrence took 

 place of diluvial action, with the result that the present river-system repre- 

 sented by the Lark and its affluents was established. The old river-valley with 

 its gravels, the western side of which had already been destroyed, was now cut 

 off from the high ground to the east, and its ridge-like character finally deter- 

 mined. The ridge itself was at the same time cut into sections, and the 

 beginning of such a cutting process at High Lodge swept the gravels capping 

 the ridge at this point over the brow of the hill on to the top of the 

 lower-lying but much more recently deposited brick-earth with its contained 

 Mousterian implements. 



Before passing to the consideration of the Neolithic Period a few words 

 must be said about the hiatus of time that is presumed tohave existed between 

 the end of the Palaeolithic Period and the beginning of the Neolithic. There 

 is a general consensus of opinion that in North-west Europe, at any rate, there 

 was a lapse of time of indeterminate length, during which, for some reason not 

 yet explained, large areas of Europe, including the British Isles, were unin- 

 habited, and therefore presumably not habitable, by man. There has been 

 a tendency amongst some archaeologists to call certain groups of implements 

 which do not appear to find a place in any of the recognized periods ' Meso- 

 lithic;' that is to say, between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods. But 

 the connotation of the word is so very large that it would require evidence of 

 a far more convincing character than anything that has hitherto been brought 

 forward to admit of its acceptance in scientific archaeology. For the present 

 therefore we are justified in postulating the existence of a hiatus ; the 

 Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages being sharply defined from one other. During 

 this hiatus man must have lived somewhere ; but as to the conditions of his 

 existence we shall have to wait for knowledge until we have learnt a great 

 deal more than we know at present of the Stone Age of the subtropical and 

 tropical regions of the earth. 



The Neolithic Age 



If the Palaeolithic Period has presented us in North-west Suffolk with 

 novel problems of great interest, the Neolithic Period in no way yields to it in 

 the importance and the interest of the problems which it offers us. Here it 

 is not, however, to the position in which the implements lie that we must look 

 for the main factors of the case. Neolithic implements all lie on the surface 

 or in the surface soil ; hence it is only exceptionally that we shall get help from 

 position. It is the stones themselves that must be our study, their forms and 

 especially their surfaces — the patination or other changes that have taken place 

 on these surfaces. In stones from the gravels we saw that the study of patina 

 might be of considerable service in clearing up problems ; but in their case 

 the patina is only of secondary value, the chief element being the geological 



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