Notes and Comments. 9 



Moir and I arc right in assigning the remains here described 

 to a man who lived in Suffolk before the formation of the 

 boulder clay, then there can be no doubt we are dealing with 

 one of the earliest representations of man yet discovered. The 

 only other remains which are certainly older are the Heidelberg 

 jaw and the fossil man of Java (Pithecanthropus credits).' 

 And Mr. J. Reid Moir concludes by stating that ' It will, 

 I think, be seen from these carefully-compiled reports that in 

 all respects this matter has been gone into in as thorough and 

 scientific a manner as possible.' He also gives a photograph 

 of a tusk of Elephas at Charsfield, which, in his opinion, was 

 found on the same horizon, and suggests that the Ipswich man 

 and the Charsfield elephant were contemporary. That was 

 all five short years ago. 



THE YOUNG MAX OF IPSWICH. 



And now, after the elaborate and illustrated and signed 

 reports, we get a reverse, which comes as a thunderbolt. This 

 geological "prehistorian," with his expert knowledge of boulder 

 clay, beats a retreat, regardless of the former .assistance of 

 his allies. As has been pointed out in The Naturalist on more 

 than one occasion, the extraordinarily great age of the so-called 

 Ipswich man was very doubtful, notwithstanding the lengthy 

 reports on the subject prepared by Ipswich antiquaries, backed 

 up by specialists who ought to have known better. We hope 

 those specialists share our feelings at seeing the following admis- 

 sion which has been sent to the press by Mr. Reid Moir. The 

 pity is that the original announcement was ever made, as the 

 Ipswich skeleton, endowed with questionable years, lias found 

 its way into more than one text -book. 



BOULDER CLAY AXD XOT BOULDER CLAY. 



Mr. J. Reid Moir writes : — "It will no doubt be remembered 

 that at the time of the discovery, in 1911, of a human skele- 

 ton in a sand pit in the occupation of Messrs. A. Bolton & Co., 

 Ltd. (late Bolton & Laughlin), of Henley Road, Ipswich, it 

 was held by some geologists, and by myself, that the remains 

 occurred beneath an undisturbed stratum of weathered chalky 

 boulder clay. Since this discovery I have been enabled to 

 investigate the small valley adjoining the sand pit in which 

 the human skeleton was found, and to conduct excavations in 

 the immediate vicinity of the spot where the bones occurred. 

 These investigations have shown that at about the level 

 at which the skeleton rested, the scanty remains of a ' floor ' 

 are present, and that the few associated flint implements 

 appear to be the same as others found on an old occupation- 

 level in the adjacent valley. This occupation-level is, in all 

 probability, referable to the early Aurignac period, and it 

 appears that the person whose remains were discovered was 



1917 Jan. 1. 



