4.00 REPORT—1896. 
The Relation of Paleolithic Man to the Glacial Epoch.—Report of the 
Committee, consisting of Sir JoHN Evans (Chairman), Miss E. 
Morse, Mr. CLEMENT Retp (Secretary), Mr. EH. P. Rmiey, and 
Mr. H. N. RipLey, appointed to ascertain by excavation at Howne 
the relations of the Paleolithic Deposits to the Boulder Clay, and to 
the deposits with Arctic and Temperate Plants. (Drawn up by the 
Secretary.) 
APPENDIX.— Details of Borings . Q 5 : : : ; 0 - page 412 
PLATE. 
Tis Committee was appointed with the object of clearing up certain 
doubtful points as to the relation of Paleolithic man to the Glacial epoch. 
Hoxne, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, was selected as the best 
locality for the investigation, for Paleolithic implements and various 
fossiliferous strata were there known to occur in close proximity to 
undisturbed Boulder Clay, and it was probable that a single excavation 
would be sufficient to decide several of the disputed questions. A few 
words as to previous investigations will explain the state of our know- 
ledge when the Committee commenced work. 
Previous Observers. 
John Frere, in 1797, recorded in a letter the occurrence of abundant 
Paleolithic implements.! These seem to have been obtained from the 
northern end of the pit, now abandoned and overgrown with oak-trees 
apparently about ninety years old. Implements seem to have been more 
plentiful there than in the part now worked, for Frere speaks of the 
occurrence ‘at the rate of five or six in a square yard.’ One in about ten 
square yards is nearer the rate at the present day. 
Mr. John Evans was the first of late years to call attention to Frere’s 
discoveries, and he visited Hoxne with Mr. Prestwich. They sank some 
pits in 1859.? 
In 1860 and 1864 Professor Prestwich published descriptions of the 
strata at Hoxne, showing that certain beds with leaves and freshwater 
shells underlay the Paleolithic deposits, and that these lacustrine strata 
rested on. Boulder Clay. 
Thomas Belt subsequently (in 1876) tried to prove the interglacial age of 
the implement-bearing loams, laying special stress on the occurrence in the 
pit in Oakley Park of a small patch of Chalky Boulder Clay overlying 
the. loam.* 
A year or two later Mr. H. B. Woodward and Mr. Clement Reid 
examined a new cut made to drain the brickyard into Gold Brook, and 
saw Paleolithic deposits resting on Chalky Boulder Clay. 
In 1888 Mr. Clement Reid and Mr. H. N. Ridley found that the 
patch of Boulder Clay noticed by Belt above the Paleolithic deposits was 
} Archeologia, Vol. xiii. p. 204, two pp. and two 4to plates of implements. 
2 Ibid., vol. xxxviil. p. 299; Ancient Stone Implements, 1872, p. 517. 
8 Phil. Trans., vol. cl. pp. 304-308, pl. xi., and cliv. p. 283. 
* Quart. Journ, Sct., n.s., vol. vi. pp. 289-304. 
