PEOPLE OF THE SUBMERGED FOREST ;^2 
Neolithic man were found. Dr R. R. Marett has given 
a full account of this discovery.^ At no very distant 
period La Motte had formed a small peninsula, but now 
its connection with the shore is broken, and it is accessible 
on foot only when the tide is out. A.t high-water the 
waves beat round the base of the island — it is so small 
that its final demolition is almost in sight — wearing away 
its substance and exposing to full view an exact section of 
its strata. The islet rises 30 feet above high-water mark. 
No sign is to be seen of the forest zone, but the yellow 
clay — a glacial deposit — on which the forest bed should 
rest forms the basis of the islet. Over the basal 15 feet 
of yellow clay lies a stratum of sand and clay — a loess — 
4 feet in thickness. Above that, and forming the surface 
stratum, is a layer of blown sand covered with vegetation. 
Below the blown sand lies the surface on which Neolithic 
man lived, for here are abundant remains of a " kitchen- 
midden " — charcoal, bones of ox, pig, red deer, shells of 
limpets, fragments of Neolithic pottery, and abundance of 
flint chips. In 191 1 a landslide from the side of the 
island exposed a fresh section, in which Mr Sinel's son 
detected the projecting ends of a stone cist. It did 
not lie at the level of the kitchen-midden, but 4 feet 
deeper, at the junction of the loess with the glacial 
clay. A careful exploration, undertaken by the Societe 
Jersiaise, showed that there was a series of stone cists 
placed side by side, underlying the stratum of loess. 
The cists were filled with clay, from which Mr Sinel, by 
exercising great care, was able to remove some of the 
remains of the people who had been buried in these 
Neolithic tombs. He was able to restore, from fragments, 
three of the skulls. To me it seems reasonable to 
suppose that the people buried in these cists were 
members of the community who occupied the site of the 
kitchen-midden. At a much earlier period — 1861 — a 
skull was found at La Motte. It lay within the glacial 
deposit, at a depth of 1 8 or 20 feet below the surface of 
1 " Further Observations on Prehistoric Man in Jersey," Arc/aro/o^iu, 
19 1 2, vol. Ixiii. p. 203. 
3 
