A NEOLITHIC COMMUNITY OF KENT 3 
depressions, some forty in number, marking the sites of 
the pit-dwellings of a Neolithic village.^ These ancient 
dwellings were explored over forty years ago by the Kent 
Archaeological Society. They were found to be circular 
"basin-like pits, 5 to lofeet deep and 15 feet in 
diameter." Round the pits were found fragments of 
rude pottery and numerous flint flakes and implements. 
Near by is Oldbury camp — also the work of the Neolithic 
period. 
As we turn our backs on the pit-dwellings and Oldbury 
camp to gain the main road and again face eastwards, 
it is possible that the significance of what we have just 
seen may escape us. So far as we know at present, the 
men of the more ancient or Palaeolithic period had no 
conception of house-building or of settled communities, 
of defence works or of pottery. These were, with 
perhaps the exception of the last, discoveries of the 
Neolithic period. Further, it is manifest that settled 
communities are only possible when the land is tilled and 
cattle are domesticated. Agriculture was the slow and 
laborious invention of the Neolithic age. It does not cut 
the Neolithic age any shorter if we suppose — as we must 
suppose — that agriculture was not evolved in Western 
Europe. In different parts of the world and at various 
times, man did slowly and laboriously discover the art of 
bringing plant and beast into his service. That stage — a 
Neolithic stage — was passed through somewhere, and it 
must have been an undertaking which involved many 
generations. 
Igtham, where we left the main road, is thirty miles 
from London ; six miles further along the road lies the 
village of West Mailing (fig. i). At the time this 
account begins — 1910 — for I propose in this survey to 
confine myself to the discoveries and movements of the 
last four years — Mr F. J. Bennett had retired from a 
long and active career in the service of the Geological 
Survey under the British Government and settled in 
1 For pit-dwellings in Kent, see Geo. Chnch, /ourn. Anthrop. Instit., 
1899, ser. 2, vol. ii. p. 124. 
