222 A LATE GLACIAL STAGE IJf THE LEA VALLEY. [Jime I912. 



Judged by the physical succession of the river-deposits, the 

 Arctic Bed appears to be nearer to the Neolithic age than it 

 is to the age of Kiver-Drift man, although its fauna is purely 

 Pleistocene. 



In the accompanying table (p. 223) an attempt has been made 

 to show the position of the Ponder's End stage in the general 

 Pleistocene succession. In the first five columns are placed certain 

 of our English plant-bearing deposits which can be approximately 

 correlated with the succession of culture stages. Of these the Stoke 

 Newington temperate flora is particularly well defined ^ ; it is very 

 near the line of s.d. 7.70, or it may be slightly earlier, say about 

 s.d. 7.68. The Wolvercote deposit, described by Mr. A. M. Bell,^ 

 also temperate, is probably on about the same horizon, although 

 its correlation is less clearly defined, and it may be a little earlier 

 or a little later. The Hoxne deposits, again, which have been 

 proved by the researches of Mr. Clement Beid, E.E.S.,^ to contain 

 an Arctic flora overlying a temperate one, are so far clearly defined 

 as lying between the Chalky Boulder Clay below and the stage of 

 s.d. 7.50 to 7.60 above : this higher stage being itself also temperate. 

 The temperate flora of Hitchin* may probably be on the same 

 tiorizon as the lower temperate bed of Hoxne. The Shacklewell 

 •deposit^ may be of about the same age as, or somewhat later 

 than, that of Stoke Newington. The deposit of the Admirali,y 

 Buildings, first described by Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott (see footnote 

 on p. 218), is on nearly the same horizon as the Ponder's End bed.^ 

 The evidence of the Twickenham'^ deposit seems a little conflicting; 

 it may probably be somewhat later than Ponder's End. But, so 

 far as the remains of Bos longifrons from Twickenham are con- 

 cerned, it is well to remember that Dr. Leeson & Mr. Laff'an are 

 <jareful to point out that these bones were obtained among many 

 •others thrown into a sack by the workmen. There is, therefore, 

 >no definite information to show the horizon from which they came. 

 This point appears to have been sometimes overlooked in quotations 

 from the Twickenham paper. 



It is not necessary to discuss the other English plant-bearing 

 'deposits that have been described, as these either yield no further 

 information, or else the evidence for their correlation is too in- 

 definite to enable us to use them. 



To sum up the evidence of the Pleistocene plant-bearing beds, 

 one may say that the temperate flora of Stoke Newington cannot be 

 on the same horizon as the temperate flora of Hoxne — the Arctic 



^ Worthington G. Smith, ' Man the Primeral Savage ' 1894. 



2 Q. J. a. S. vol. Ix (1904) p. 120. 



3 Eep. Brit. Assoc. (Ipswich) 1896. p. 400. 



4 C. Raid, Proc. E,oy. Soc. vol. Ixi (1897) p. 40. 



5 J. Prestwich, Q.J. G. S. vol.xi (1855) p. 107 ; and C. Reid, ibid. vol. liii 

 (1897) p. 463. 



'^ The Arctic plant-bed of the Admiralty Buildings was overlain by a shell- 

 bed containing tfnio littoralis, etc. This is certainly remarkable ; but, without 

 further evidence, one could not suggest two separate Arctic stages so near 

 together as that of the Admiralty Buildings and Ponder's End. 



7 J. R. Leeson & G. B. Laffan, Q. J. G. S. vol. 1 (1894) p. 458. 



