226 ME. S. H. WARREN OX A LATE GLACIAL [June I9I2, 



are cut into by contorted drifts, sometimes composed in part of 

 redistributed Chalky Eoulder Clay which must have been thrust 

 into them in large frozen masses. I think that the Pouder's End 

 evidence affords the explanation. During this stage snow must 

 have continuously accumulated during, perhaps, six months, or 

 more than six months, of the year. When the summer thaws set 

 in, great slides of slush mixed with clay and stones, and frozen 

 blocks of dislodged soil, would creep down the hillsides and along 

 the valley-slopes, disturbing the superficial deposits in. their 

 course. 



There is another archaeological problem upon which the climatic 

 conditions of the Ponder's End Stage m-ay possibly throw some 

 light. This is the poverty of all the lower terraces of the Eiver 

 Drifts in remains of early man. May not the inclemeucy of the 

 climate have driven man from the open air to seek the protection 

 of the caves and rock -shelters, and finally have caused him to leave 

 these shores altogether to find his home in sunnier climes ? It is 

 significant in this respect that reindeer and other Arctic mammalia 

 abound in the cave-deposits associated with the relics of the later 

 Palaeolithic men. 



YII. The Holocene Alluvitjm oe the IIiver Lea. 



Holocene Alluvium begins to come on at the south-eastern 

 corner of the Ponder's End pit, but the section so far exposed is a 

 small one and the Alluvium does not exceed 6 feet in thickness. The 

 junction between the E.ecent and the Pleistocene beds is an eroded 

 one, and there is evidence of much redistribution of the upper beds 

 of the drift-gravel beneath the Alluvium. The brickearth which 

 caps the gravel is also cut off, equally with the gravel itself, by the 

 Alluvium, and is thus seen to belong to the Pleistocene series. 



At the base of the Alluvium I have found some fragments of 

 prehistoric pottery and a few flint-chips. These scanty remains 

 do not furnish sufficient evidence to fix their date : but they 

 are not necessarily Neolithic, and may belong to the Early Bronze 

 Age. Associated with them were some mammalian and other bones, 

 which Mr. E. T. jSTewton, E.R.S., has been kind enough to examine. 

 They include a skull of Bos longifrons, with the horn-cores some- 

 what flattened and turned backwards instead of forwards. Among 

 the limb-bones, some probably belong to the same species, while 

 others represent a large variety of pig. There is also the femur of 

 a swan. 



In the neighbouring excavations for the Chingford Eeservoir, a 

 good many mammalian remains have been found in the extensive 

 exposures of Alluvium which have been made during the progress 

 of the work. These include, among many others, some antlers of 

 Cervus elaphus and a fine skull of Bos primigenius that is now in 

 the British Museum (Xatural History). It has hardly seemed worth 



