44 Reports & Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



III. — Geological Society op London. 



December 2, 1914. — Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., President, in 



the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "On the Age and Character of the Shippea Hill Man." By 

 Professor T. McKenny Hughes, M.A.,F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author first gives a general description of the skeleton, and 

 of the position and circumstances in which it was found. He then 

 discusses the mode of formation of the deposit in which the remains 

 occurred, and the limits within which, from that point of view, we 

 may speculate as to their age. He considers that the Pleistocene 

 deposits of the Fenland were laid down in a gradually depressed 

 river-basin behind a breached seaward barrier, and gives examples 

 from adjoining areas of similar geographical conditions. 



Gravels of the age of Elephas antiquus and Rhinoceros merckii, as 

 well as gravels of the age of JElephas primigenius and Rhinoceros 

 tichorhinus, occur within the Fenland ; but they are easily dis- 

 tinguished from the gravels which are sometimes associated with 

 the peat and clay, and pass under them. The fauna also of the 

 peat and clay deposits is quite different. This area was gradually 

 depressed, and the conflict between the upland waters and the sea 

 went on through both the ages just referred to, as shown by 

 the earlier Corbicula Bed of March and the newer Cockle Bed of 

 Littleport. 



In an embayed part of the Fen, close behind the island known 

 as Shippea Hill, the skeleton was found in the peat, a few inches 

 above the clay which the author considers to be the equivalent of 

 this Littleport Cockle Bed. When first dug out the skull was in 

 fragments, and the calotte, with its prominent brow-ridges, suggested 

 to many a greater affinity to the Neanderthal type, and a greater 

 antiquity than appeared probable when the rest of the cranium was 

 added to it. 



In a preliminary notice published by the author, he claimed that 

 it could not be older than Neolithic, and suggested that it might 

 be even as late as the time of the monks of Ely, who had a retreat 

 on the island close by. 



The author, in reply, said that they had of course been on the 

 look-out for evidence of interment ; but, as he had explained in the 

 paper, there was none. 



The comparison of the conditions of the Wash with those of 

 the Baltic showed that the Wash was an area of depression during 

 those later ages of which he was speaking ; whereas, in later times, 

 the Baltic was an area of elevation by which it was gradually cut off 

 from the open sea, so that the excess of fresh water poured into it 

 had made the eastern water now so little salt that he had seen cows 

 drinking on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. As to the statement 

 that the depression of the area of the Wash was entirely pre-Roman, 

 he did not himself know of any satisfactory evidence leading to 

 that conclusion ; but that the Romans did something towards the 

 reclamation of the Fens was suggested by the Roman remains along 



