40 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
complete absence of any record of the culture of the 
people ; in not a single case is the discovery mentioned 
of a typical example of a Neolithic implement or of even 
a flint chip. That is because we are only now awakening 
to the kind of evidence which is required to give our 
discoveries a true value as historical documents. The 
need of such evidence is exemplified in the next dis-- 
covery I am to mention — one made when new docks 
were constructed at Newport, which lies also on the 
south coast of Wales, almost on the estuary of the 
Severn. Mr J. D. C. Couper, the resident engineer, 
made most careful records of the sections which were 
cut in the alluvial deposits at the mouth of the Ebbw, 
covering the old submerged-forest zone. The excava- 
tions exposed a deep layer of silt or mud overlying an 
equally deep layer of gravel. Lying within the gravel, 
at a depth of 60 feet below the surface level of the land 
and 20 feet below the Ordnance datum level, was found 
a human skull. ^ Also remains of the wolf, of the red 
deer, the pelvis of a large ox (curiously ground and 
polished on one aspect, as if it had been used as a sledge 
on ice), of the horse, of all the mammals which flourished 
in Neolithic times. These were found at the same level, 
or near the same level, as the human skull. Worked 
flints were also found, but, unfortunately, no record was 
kept of them. We are thus not certain that the skull 
found is that of Neolithic man ; the evidence, however, 
does justify us in presuming that it is of that date. The 
outlines of the skull are given in fig. 19, and again it 
will be seen we have to deal with a man's skull of the 
type we have already seen from other Neolithic horizons. 
It is not necessary to multiply such examples. I may 
refer, however, to a skull ^ which was discovered when the 
Manchester ship canal was being made in 1890. It lay 
in a deposit of fine, sharp sand, covered by silt and other 
strata, amounting to 27 feet. No record was made of 
any objects of culture found in the same stratum as the 
' See Reports of Newport Museum,, 191 1. 
'-' Now in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England. 
