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NEOLITHIC LIFE IN LINCOLNSHIRE. 
JOHN H. COOKE, F.G.S., F.L.S.,. etc., 
Vice-President Soy the Lincolnshire Science Society. 
FIRST PAPER. : 
TuE historic and the pre-historic monuments of Lincolnshire 
have for some years past engaged the attention of 
i unt ut t 
has been productive of interesting and valuable results, that 
of the pre-historic has received but casual notice and scant 
commentary In the course of some geological work in 
which I have been engaged, I have had occasion to devote 
some attention to investigations that trench on the domain of 
the archeologist; and I ; propose to briefly indicate the 
evidences that Lincolnshire supplies in proof of its former 
occupation by races of whom history takes no cognizance. 
In the interpretation of these evidences, and in tracing out 
the histories of the people with whom they are connected, we 
are, at the outset, confronted with a difficulty that is unknown 
to the student of the histories of modern races. There are no 
traditions to assist, but reliance has to be placed entirely upon 
the empirical study of the monuments, implements, and other 
relics that have been preserved in the soils of the county in 
a more or less satisfactory condition. 
For expediency anthropologists have divided the period that 
intervened between the occupation of Britain by the earliest 
known races, and the advent of the Romans in 55 B.c., into 
two periods of time of unknown duration. The first and more 
ancient is known as the ‘ Palwolithic’ age, a word which signifies 
“ancient stone’; while the second and more recent period is 
called the ‘ Neolithic’ or later stone age. Up to the present 
time, no traces of Paleolithic man have been found in Lincoln- 
shire. To those who have studied the geology of the county this 
fact is not remarkable. The nature of the rocks, and the 
manner in which they were ground down by the great glaciers 
that once covered them, are not favourable to the finding of any 
traces of the peoples who resided here during the Glacial period. 
But it does not follow that, because such remains have not been 
found, they do not therefore exist. The areas south of Lincoln- 
shire have furnished abundant and unequivocal evidences ; and 
further research may possibly be rewarded in this rounty also. 
Hestia, 
