72 AN EARLY NEOLITHIC KITCHEN-MIDDEN. 



admixture of others. The absence of various common species 

 shows that they probably did not come from Swanage Bay. The 

 absence of Pliolas suggests that they did not come from the soft 

 chalky foreshore under Ballard Down, where also Scrobicularia 

 would not be found. The entire absence of cockles, much better 

 food than any of the species eaten at Blashenwell, suggests that 

 the tribe had no access to Poole Harbour, where cockles abound. 

 Everything points to the neighbourhood of Chapman's Pool, two 

 miles or so from Blashenwell, as the place where the shells were 

 gathered. The estuarine Scrobicularia, it is true, is not now to be 

 found there ; but when the coast had been less cut back, and 

 extended half-a-mile or more further seaward, the lower part of 

 the valley was probably tidal, and Chapman's Pool would yield 

 exactly the assemblage we find at Blashenwell. 



No remains of fish or birds have yet been found. The land- 

 snails, which are so plentiful in the tufa, may not have been used 

 for food, though it would be impossible to distinguish between 

 shells broken by thrushes and those broken by men. 



We seem, therefore, to have evidence at Blashenwell of a very 

 low race, unacquainted with metals or even pottery, making flint 

 knives, but no better implements, apparently without domestic 

 animals or cultivated plants, and living principally on wild pig, 

 deer, and limpets. The remains of their feasts seem all to have 

 been thrown into the stream, to be immediately sealed up in the 

 tufa. It may be said that this was merely a horde of outcasts, 

 such as may be found picking up a precarious living on the shore 

 in various countries at the present day. But against this view is 

 the fact that the mass of tufa, some eight feet thick, though 

 undoubtedly deposited rapidly, must have taken a good many 

 years to form, and traces of the same race occur throughout. If 

 higher races at that time lived anywhere in the neighbourhood one 

 would expect to find an implement or a piece of pottery ; and it 

 seems unlikely that they would have left one of the choicest sites 

 to a lower tribe. On these grounds, and because of its relation to 

 the more recent interment, I would suggest that this kitchen* 



