A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



have been noted only in the southern end of the county and have a close 

 relationship to the drift gravels of the Thames valley in which they 

 have been discovered. The fact that at least some specimens have under- 

 gone drift-wear, indeed, suggests that, strictly speaking, they neither have 

 now, nor ever had, any connection with the past history of the area we 

 now know as Buckinghamshire, because drift-wear shows that they have 

 travelled a considerable distance down the Thames valley since they 

 were shaped by primitive man. Their place of origin as human tools or 

 weapons may have been Oxfordshire, or even farther off. 



In order to obtain a glimpse of Buckinghamshire in those far-off 

 times it is necessary to consider the river-drift deposits of the Thames 

 valley as a whole. This is the more desirable because the palaeolithic 

 age is separated from our own times by a long period of time and great 

 physical changes, with the natural result that scarcely anything in the 

 form of archaeological relics less hard than stone has survived. Founded 

 on the evidence of the bruised, battered, and worn flint implements, our 

 ideas of the condition of man in palaeolithic times are far from extensive 

 and far from satisfactory. Still, as far as they go, they are perhaps more 

 precise than one might imagine who had not studied the subject. 



The Thames valley contains a number of beds of drift-gravel among 

 which a large total number of palaeolithic tools and weapons have been 

 found. It has already been mentioned that some of these have been 

 much worn and have obviously been transported to considerable dis- 

 tances. Others, particularly those found in sand or brick-earth, show no 

 sign of drift-wear. In other parts of the Thames valley it is clear that 

 the manufacture of palaeolithic implements was carried on close by the 

 river-side. Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell found the site of a regular implement 

 factory at Crayford, Kent ; Mr. J. Allen Brown found another at Acton, 

 Middlesex ; and still another has been found by Mr. W. G. Smith, at 

 Caddington, in Bedfordshire. In all these cases it has been found pos- 

 sible to replace the flakes, as they were struck off by palaeolithic man, so 

 as to build up the nodule of flint practically to its original form. 



One of the features of the occurrence of palaeolithic implements 

 in the Thames valley, and in other valleys, is the comparative abundance 

 of implements, flakes, etc., at one spot and the rarity or entire absence of 

 them at many other parts of the valley. It is possible, or even probable, 

 that the physical forces which are responsible for the presence and 

 arrangement of drift-gravel in a river valley may have had an intimate 

 relation to the diffusion of implements, but it is impossible to avoid the 

 inference that the population of the country in the palaeolithic age was 

 sparse, partial, and chiefly confined to the banks or immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of rivers. In palaeolithic times, however, it must be remem- 

 bered that the River Thames was a very much larger body of water 

 than at present, and adequately filled up its valley. 



The actual remains of the palaeolithic age found in Buckinghamshire 

 comprise flakes and implements or weapons formed of flint of the usual 

 character and types of river-drift implements. These have been dis- 



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