/, Reid Moir — Age of Earliest Palct'olithic Implements. 221 



The Geological Age of the Earliest Palaeolithic 

 Flint Implements. 



By J. Reid Moir. 



rpHE investigations which I have carried out in the Ipswich 

 -*- district of Suffolk, and certain discoveries (to be described 

 shortly) made during the jDast year at Mundesley, Norfolk, have 

 impressed uj^on my mind the possibility that the ordinary platessi- 

 f orm and batiform palaeolithic flint implements found usually in river 

 terrace gravels are older geologically than has been generally 

 imagined. This, however, is not altogether an original opinion, 

 as the late Professor James Geikie, F.R.S.,' the late Mr. S. B. J. 

 Skertchly," and Mr. A. S. Kennard," basing their views upon evidence 

 other than that upon which I rely, arrived at a similar conclusion. 

 As is well known, it was stated authoritatively many years ago 

 that our English river- valleys containing implementiferous gravel 

 beds were cut through, and are therefore later than the Chalky 

 Boulder- clay.'' 



Now, however, a closer examination, or access to sections not 

 visible years ago, has demonstrated that in the case of the main 

 river- valleys of Suffolk this dictum no longer holds good."'^ Further, 

 it would appear hardly justifiable to assume that because a gravel 

 bed can be shown to have been laid down after the deposition of 

 the Chalky Boulder-clay, the flint implements contained in such 

 a gravel, which are often considerably rolled and older than the 

 bed in which they occur, are, necessarily, to be referred to post- 

 Chalky Boulder-clay times. 



Again, for many years past Continental archaeologists and geologists 

 have recognized that the various races of palaeolithic man lived 

 in mild epochs intervening between the different glacial episodes, 

 and, as England during the greater part of the palaeolithic j^eriod 

 was joined to the Continent and experienced probably similar 

 vicissitudes of climate, it would seem unlikely that all the English 

 palaeolithic artefacts are post-Glacial. 



The discoveries to which I have referred have led me to propose 

 the following table, showing the various prehistoric flint cultures 

 and their relationship to the glacial deposits of East Anglia. I have 

 also ventured to attempt a correlation of these East Anglian glacial 

 deposits with those recognized upon the Continent by Professor 

 Albrecht Penck." But this is, at present, a tentative correlation, 



' The Great. Ice Age, pp. .^>20 -4(5. 



■^ The Geolog}! of the FenlainJ (Mem. Geol. Surv. Great Britain). 



* " The Pleistocene Succession in England " ; Proc. P.S.E.A., vol. ii, pt. ii, 

 pp. 249-67. . 



■* Sir J. Prestwich, Phil. Trims., vol. cl, 1869, p. riOf). 



^ Boswell, "The Aoe of the Suffolk Valleys": Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 

 vol. Ixix, pp. 581-620. 



* Die Alpen im. Eiszeitalter. 



