SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 427 
Mr. TREvVoR THomas.—Approach to primitive art (11.45). 
If art is conceived as manipulation of material in such ways as to express 
varieties of experience and vision, appreciation of expression as embodied 
in primitive art is likely to prove difficult for sophisticated people. Approach 
to the primitive will be conditioned by previously determined concepts, 
but resultant evaluations will not be without worth as criticism. Dis- 
advantages of a limited field of perception are well exemplified in ethno- 
graphical studies which, regarding primitive works as artefacts rather than 
art, are concerned with them mostly as adjuncts to religious, social and 
tribal organisation. 
Human geographical and environmental view-points provide interesting 
but limited angles of interpretation through correlated factors of climate, 
vegetation and habitat. Tending to stand in opposition to these two schools 
of intellectual approach, the emotionally conditioned advance guard of 
modern art recognises, in the plastic tensions of native work, abstract 
expressions of universal awareness similar to its own. 
The dangers and extravagance of such approaches can be balanced by 
more tangible standards of criticism indicated in the study and analysis of 
primitive art in relation to technique and materials employed. This ap- 
proach, whilst logically linked with the methods previously indicated, deals 
directly with the specimens, thus avoiding some of the weaknesses implicit 
in the introduction of external factors. 
Mr. J. E. Sainty. —Whitlingham (12.30). 
Whitlingham lies two miles east of Norwich, on the right bank of the 
Yare-Wensum. ‘The derelict chalk pit shows a section of chalk, stone bed, 
shelly crag and glacial beds, and produced the ‘ Norwich Test Specimen ’ 
rostro-carinate and the huge worked flake (6 lb. 6 oz.), both in the British 
Museum, as well as the boldly flaked hand-axe in Norwich Castle Museum. 
On the sewage farm shallow diggings for gravel disclosed hand-axes, 
and subsequent excavations produced 550 artefacts, ranging from derived 
sub-Crag and Chellian specimens, rolled and striated, to evolved Acheulian 
hand-axes in mint condition. ‘These occurred in a terrace gravel 4o ft. 
above present river level. Clactonian flakes were common, whilst a small 
number of finely worked racloirs and flakes with faceted butts and heavily 
resolved flaking were obtained. The overlying stony clay supplied a few 
gray or white hand-axes of late type anda fine scraper similar to High Lodge 
specimens. An orange stained rostro-carinate showed the survival to late 
Acheulian times of this form. 
No late Paleolithic material has been recognised, but the presence of 
Cissbury artefacts confirms Arderon’s account of the finding in ancient 
workings in the chalk of red deer antler picks (now in Norwich Castle 
Museum) and of a human skeleton. 
In the adjoining garden at Crown Point was found a hoard of five superbly 
flaked axes showing no sign of usage. 
AFTERNOON. 
Mr. M. C. Burxitt.—Technique as a criterion of culture (2.0). 
Prehistoric implements have been classified hitherto according to a system 
of typology, certain arbitrary characteristics being selected as representative 
of different types of tool. These tool-types are themselves sub-divisible. 
Thus a collection of implements can be separated into tool families, each 
family being in turn subdivided and re-subdivided. Always the type 
