58 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
This description applies exceedingly well to the specimens 
from the Cam Valley, but to these implements we may add an 
abundance of prismatic cores of from one to three inches long, 
and a form of implement allied to the grattoir tarte. These 
may have originated from the use of the prismatic core, but in 
many cases the flakes struck from them would be useless and 
the signs of wear and retouching on their edge points to their 
use as a small plane for smoothing wood or bone. As in Nor¬ 
folk, a large percentage of specimens are formed from nodules, 
and are thicker than those of the later industry and have often 
a portion of the original crust remaining. A large number 
of them have the mottled blue patina, but many of them are 
unpatinated and with a high polish upon the worked surfaces. 
It should be noted that on certain sites worked flakes are abund¬ 
ant, but that they are usually of small size and often of imperfect 
workmanship. 
Although found upon Boulder Clay sub-soil in Norfolk this 
type usually occurs upon the lighter soil of the Chalk slopes 
and gravel terraces in N.W. Essex. 
The crudity of the specimens and the rarity of polished im¬ 
plements and arrow heads point to the culture of a primitive 
folk, perhaps not antecedent in time to the more cultured 
peoples of the Brecklands and East Essex, but of a lower grade 
of civilisation. 
As a provisional hypothesis the writer would suggest that 
Neolithic man in the Cam Valley and on the Norfolk uplands 
was a primitive race linking up the early Neolithic culture of 
the Cissbury type with the later Neolithic culture of the early 
series of East Essex and the Brecklands. 
i * , 
RECORD OF SITES. 
I. Ickleton. Coploe Hill. Essex Sheet II., S.E. 
Longitude o° io' 39", latitude 52 0 3' 33". Elevation 230 ft. 
O.D., 115 ft. above valley bottom. On the west of the road from 
Ickleton to StrethaU, about f mile south of the church. Situ¬ 
ated on a spur of the escarpment, running north from StrethaU, 
and dividing a dry valley on the west from the main Cam Valley 
on the east. The site is on the brow and steep west slope of the 
ridge ; it is bare of trees and exposed to wind from all quarters. 
