THE COMING OF MAN 101 



various deposits beneath the river. After cutting down to 

 that bed the river laid down gravels upon it ; and then 

 the land standing at a higher level than to-day the river 

 valley and the sourrounding country were covered by a 

 forest, which, as the climate altered and became damper, 

 was succeeded by the formation of peat. The land has 

 since sunk, and the peat, in parts 17 ft. thick, is now found 

 under Southampton Water, covered by estuarine silt. 

 The Empress Dock at Southampton was dug where a mud 

 bank was exposed at low water. The mud bank was 

 formed of river silt 12 to 17 feet thick. Below this was the 

 peat, resting on gravel. On the gravel horns of reindeer 

 were found. In the peat were large horn cores of the great 

 extinct ox, Bos pritnigenius, also horns of red deer, and 

 also in the peat were found neolithic flint chips, a circular 

 stone hammer head, with a hole bored through for a 

 wooden handle, and a large needle made of horn. Here, 

 at a great interval of time after Palaeolithic man, as we see 

 by the history of the river we have just traced, we come 

 to the new race of men, the Neolithic. 



When Neolithic man appeared the land stood higher than 

 at present, though not so high as during great part of the 

 Pleistocene. Britain was divided from the Continent, 

 but the shores were a good way out into what is now sea 

 round the coasts, and forests clothed these further shores. 

 Remains of these, known as submerged forest, are found 

 below the tide mark round many parts of our coast. Peat 

 as at Southampton Docks, is found under the estuarine 

 mud off Netley. The wells at the Spithead Forts show an 

 old land surface with peat more than 50 feet below the 

 tide level. The old bed of the Solent river lies much lower 

 still 124 feet below high tide at Neman's Land Fort ; 

 this channel was probably an estuary after the subsidence 

 of the land till it silted up with marine deposits to the 

 level on which the submerged forest grew. 



When the Solent and Southampton Water were wooded 



