THE PREHISTORIC 

 PERIOD 



THE county of Hertford is fairly rich in the remains of the 

 prehistoric, or, as it may perhaps in this instance be called, the 

 pre-Roman period. In treating of it, it will be well to adopt 

 the usual subdivisions of the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze 

 and late-Celtic periods, and, in addition, to call attention to some of 

 the more remarkable earthworks in the county, though the age of 

 many of them is uncertain, and may possibly be post-Roman. 



In giving summary notices of the various discoveries, references will 

 in most cases be made to the works in which more detailed accounts 

 of them may be found. 



THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD 



When first, about the year 1859, special attention was called to 

 the discovery in the gravels of the valley of the Somme at Abbeville 

 and Amiens of implements of flint evidently fashioned by the hand of 

 man, it was soon perceived that they must belong to a far earlier time 

 than the better-known weapons and implements of the Stone Age as 

 defined by the Scandinavian school of archaeologists. Not only did 

 these drift-implements occur associated with a fauna different from that 

 now prevailing in western Europe, but their forms and the character of 

 their workmanship were also different. Many of the animals whose 

 remains are found in the implement-bearing gravels, such as the TLlephas 

 primigenius, or Siberian mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorbinus, or 

 woolly-haired rhinoceros, are now absolutely extinct ; while others, 

 such as the reindeer, are now only found in latitudes farther north. 

 Among the mollusca in the beds in which the implements are found, 

 some are also extinct, while others occur only in distant habitats. The 

 Corbicula fluminalis or Cyrena consobrina, which is of not unfrequent 

 occurrence in the implementiferous beds, is now no longer living in any 

 river nearer than the Nile. Instead, moreover, of being usually found 

 upon the surface of the ground, at a moderate depth below it, or in 

 graves or burial mounds, the new class of implements was often and 

 indeed generally discovered in undisturbed beds of loam, sand, and gravel 

 of considerable thickness, and principally towards the base of such beds. 

 And further, these deposits in which the implements were found pre- 

 sented the appearance of having been laid down by flood-waters in the 

 valleys of ancient rivers, which in the course of ages had been deepened 



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