On Denehules. 
49 
in attracting population in tlie Stone periods analogous to 
that of coal in this present iron age. 
A brief account of the leading characteristics of the ancient 
flint-workings at Brandon and Cissbury will show in what 
respects they resemble and in what they differ from the pits 
visited by the Essex Field Club at Hangman’s Wood, and 
those which are so numerous south of the Thames in the 
neighourhood of Bexley. 
The assemblage of pits known as Grimes Graves is about 
three miles N.E. of Brandon, a town close to the borders of 
Norfolk and Suffolk. Canon Greenwell states 3 that the pits 
are about 254 in number, and generally about twenty-five 
feet apart. They are circular, vary in diameter from twenty 
to sixty-five feet, and have all been filled up to within four 
feet of the surface; the older pits having received the material 
brought up out of the newer ones. That examined by Canon 
Greenwell was twenty-eight feet in diameter at the top and 
twelve feet at the bottom, which was thirty-nine feet below 
the surface. The shaft was sunk through thirteen feet of 
dark yellow sand, which formed the surface, and below that 
was in chalk. The depth of the pit was determined by the 
presence, at thirty-nine feet, of a stratum of flint much 
better suited for implements than those above. The flint 
forming the floor of the shaft having been removed, galleries 
were driven in various directions to enable the workmen to 
extract more flint. These galleries averaged about three feet 
in height and from four to seven feet in width, and all the 
shafts were connected together by means of them. Numerous 
picks made from the antlers of Red Deer were found in the 
galleries. 
At Cissbury the chalk is covered by but a few inches of 
soil. The shafts, though variable in size, resembled in 
character those of Grimes Graves, and were connected 
together by a network of similar galleries. Horn picks were 
3 Journ. Ethn. Soc., Jan., 1871. The pits are in the three-cornered 
wood half a mile N.E. of the words “Grimes Graves” on the Ord. Map 
(one inch). That examined by Canon Greenwell is still about twenty 
feet deep. 
E 
