A Chellean Hand-axe from the Cromer Forest Bed

Extract

In the course of the archaeological investigations of the Cromer Forest Bed I am carrying out under the auspices of the Percy Sladen Fund, I found, during 1927, the Chellean handaxe here described (figs. 1, 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d). The specimen was lying upon the foreshore at West Runton, where, at low water, a very extensive spread of flints is exposed resting upon the chalk. There is no doubt. that the vast bulk of these stones has been derived, as at Cromer, East Runton, and elsewhere, from the slow disintegration, by sea-action, of a highly ferruginous deposit which, at many places along the Norfolk coast, can be seen lying at the base of the Forest Bed. The specimen now to be described, like so many others found upon the foreshore sites mentioned, exhibits a patination in every way comparable with that of certain flint implements and flakes discovered in place in the ferruginous deposit alluded to, and was, without question, derived from it. The colour of the flint is a light chestnut brown, in places ochreous, with large areas of speckled purple—a combination of shades which, to those who are familiar with the flints in the base of the Forest Bed, makes it clear that any stone so patinated and found upon the north-east coast of Norfolk, came from this accumulation.