30 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
deposits made in the bed of the river prior to the era 
of the submerged forest — when the period of land elevation 
was at its climax, and when the estuary of the Thames 
was far away in the North Sea. Yet, apparently, that 
deposit occurred at a very early point in the Neolithic 
period, A series of worked flints which Dr Frank Corner 
has collected from the ballast gravels of the Thames bed 
are of an early Neolithic type. Apparently, then, the 
submerged forest and the Tilbury man belong not to the 
beginning, but only to an early phase of the Neolithic 
period. One other consideration leads us to believe that 
the Neolithic culture extended over a long period of 
time. The earlier flint implements of this period are 
often weathered, so altered on their chipped surfaces that, 
in the opinion of Dr Allen Sturge, a very long period 
of time, much longer than I have postulated, must be 
assigned to the Neolithic period, in order to account for 
the degree of weathering or patination of the flints belong- 
ing to that period of culture. We are justified, on the 
evidence available at present, in regarding the Neolithic 
period as covering a period of six thousand or eight 
thousand years. We are on much surer ground, how- 
ever, when we state that the period closed about 2000 
B.C., than when we date its commencement at 10,000 
B.C. The discovery at Tilbury shows us at least that 
the modern type of man was already established in 
England towards the commencement of that period. 
The records of the Neolithic period which we have 
just deciphered at Tilbury are not confined to the lower 
valley of the Thames. When we cross the English 
Channel we find that contemporary deposits were 
accumulating in the Island of Jersey. We meet with 
traces of the same men, the same Neolithic culture, the 
same evidence of subsidence. As the steamer carries us 
along the south coast of the island in the early morning, 
past the rocky cliffs on the left, where remains of 
Neanderthal man were discovered only three years ago, 
we come presently in sight of the capital town, St Helier's, 
descending from the uplands of the plateau to extend 
