66 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



flints which' are accepted by most archaeologists as artefacts. The 

 Crag deposits consist of marine shelly sands and loams, with ' stone- 

 beds ' at the base of their several divisions ; and it is in the stone-beds 

 that the worked flints known as rostro-carinates and also large flakes 

 are found. If the flints were worked by Man the industry would appear 

 to be pre-Chellian. 



The next horizon containing supposedly-worked flints is the gravel 

 bed which often forms the base of the Cromer Forest-bed. If it is 

 agreed that the deposit of coarse flints on the foreshore between Cromer 

 and East Runton is the undisturbed local base of the Forest-bed, and if 

 the flaking of the flints is regarded as Man's handiwork, we here have 

 evidence of another pre-Chellian industry, of which flakes and not 

 rostro-carinates are typical forms. The accompanying fauna, including 

 Elephas antiquus (the straight-tusked elephant). Hippopotamus amphibius. 

 Rhinoceros etruscus, and R. leptorhinus, contains ancient elements in 

 addition to forms associated with Chellian Man on the Continent. Above 

 the gravels of the Cromer Forest-bed are black laminated clays con- 

 taining peat with occasional scattered flint fragments, usually small, 

 and displaying a characteristic black shiny lustre. No flints of undoubted 

 human manufacture have been found in situ in this bed, but from time 

 to time implements have been discovered on the foreshore and in one 

 instance in the Cromer Till. From their appearance and patina, it has 

 been assumed that they came from the black clays. They comprise 

 ' Chellian ' hand-axes and flakes, but, as will presently be seen, they 

 must either belong to an earlier industry than that generally included 

 in the Chellian, or the Chellian industry must straddle a major glaciation, 

 that of the Norwich Brickearth ; it may even straddle two glaciations. 



The progress of climatic cooling, indicated by the moUusca of the 

 various Crag deposits, is continued in the two succeeding depDsits, the 

 Leda-myalis Bed and the impersistent and rarely-exposed Arctic Fresh- 

 water Bed, in neither of which have remains of Man yet been found. 

 These beds, however, have some significance for the archjeologist, for 

 they suggest an elevation of the sea-floor and the production of an exten- 

 sive land-surface in East Anglia. What beings peopled that land- 

 surface we do not know. As parts of it persisted for long ages, while 

 other parts were covered by glacial deposits and again exposed by de- 

 nudation, it is impossible at the moment to refer to their relative position 

 in the geological time-scale any materials that may have been subse- 

 quently picked up from this surface. 



At the end of the episode of the Arctic Freshwater Bed and the Leda- 

 myalis Bed a striking change of physical conditions is inferred, for the 

 next deposit is the Norwich Brickearth already mentioned. This consists 

 of clayey sands in which pebbles and boulders of chalk, flint, and crystalline 

 rocks are scattered sporadically. No rocks identifiable as of exclusively 

 British provenance have been found in it, but numerous types peculiar 

 to Norway have been recognised. Of late years opinion has been veering 

 to the view that it has originated from the melting of an ice-sheet in 

 water, but whether this water was brackish or salt is not known. Un- 

 doubtedly the ice-sheet had not only delivered into East Anglia boulders 



