522 FOSSIL HUMAN REMAINS FROM KENT. [Aug. 1895. 



gravel — namely, Cyrena Jluminalis, Bithynia tentaculata, Valvata 

 joiscinalis, and Pisidium fontinale.' 



No one is better acquainted with the North Kent Pleistocene 

 deposits than Mr. Spurrell, and he agrees with other writers in 

 regarding these gravels, which extend from Dartford Heath to 

 Gravesend, at a height of about 100 feet O.D., as parts of one original 

 stretch of deposits, and the gravel now standing in the Galley Hill 

 pit he believes to be an undisturbed portion of the same deposit. 



Mr. Spurrell tells me that human bones have previously been 

 met with, ostensibly from these gravels, but no record has been 

 kept of the conditions under which they occurred. He doubts 

 whether the human bones described in this paper are really of the 

 same age as the gravels. 



The fact that the surfaces of the Galley Hill bones have been 

 eaten away by rootlets has led to the inference that the gravel in 

 which they were found had been disturbed, for it has been thought 

 that rootlets would not penetrate this terrace-gravel to so great a 

 depth as 8 feet when it was in an undisturbed condition. How- 

 ever, on the occasion of one of our later visits to Galley Hill 

 Mr. Elliott and Mr. Frank Corner traced living roots descending 

 from the surface-soil through about 8 feet of undisturbed gravel 

 down to the same level as that where the human bones- were found, 

 and within a few feet of the same spot. Also at "Wanstead, in 

 Essex, we have obtained roots from a depth of 7 feet below very 

 similar gravel, containing Palaeolithic implements, the undisturbed 

 condition of which could not be doubted. 



No one would, I think, question the Palaeolithic age of this 

 gravel at Galley Hill and in the neighbourhood, or the genuineness of 

 the implements found in it, but for the finding of the human bones ; 

 this discovery, however, at once causes all manner of doubts to 

 arise and renders it necessary to test every possibility of error. It 

 may be thought that this northern edge of the sheet of gravel has 

 been re-deposited by washing downhill towards the Thames ; but 

 this idea is not supported by an examination of the gravel now 

 in place. Thus, although there is a thinning of the beds to the 

 east and west (and doubtless also to the north, before the excavation 

 of the pit), the bedding of the gravel and sand still to be seen in 

 the section led Mr. Topley, Mr. Clement Reid, and Mr. Spurrell to 

 the conclusion that this part of the gravel is undisturbed. It may 

 be thought that this skeleton was let down from the surface in a 

 more recently formed ' pot-hole,' but although such excavations are 

 numerous in the adjacent Chalk, yet immediately below the spot 

 where the bones were found (and the chalk still remains) there is no 

 ' pot-hole.' 



The possibility of these human bones being the remnants of a 

 comparatively modern burial will occur to every one, but the 

 peculiar characters presented by these remains point to their being 

 of considerable antiquity, and the depth at which they were found — 

 namely, below about 8 feet of gravel — is greater than in the case 

 of most prehistoric interments. Moreover, there is no evidence 



