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The Grime's Graves Problem in the Light of Recent Researches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

A. Leslie Armstrong
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Extract

The extensive prehistoric flint mining site of Grime's Graves occupïes high ground near the Southern boundary of Norfolk, at a maximum of 100 feet above O.D. It is set amidst wild undulating breck land, here and there densely clothed in bracken, the extensive belts separated by spaces of close cropped turf, or brown heath, conspicuously sprinkled with white patinated flints, a prodigious number of which are flakes of human production.

Many of the hill-tops are crowned by plantations of hardwood and coniferous trees, but there is no evidence that this lonely land of wide expanses was ever more than thinly covered by native timber and one feels that the country as seen to-day is much as the ancient flint miners knew it, thousands of years ago.

Though now so lonely and isolated, for neither high road nor dwelling exists within a mile radius, it was obviously once the centre of great activity, for the total mined area is not less than 34 acres in extent.

Of this, 16½ acres are occupied by 366 cup-shaped hollows, varying from 12 to 70 feet in diameter, all plainly visible on the surface and each denoting an ancient mine shaft. Over the remaining 17½ acres there are no surface indications to suggest the presence of underlying shafts, but excavations during the last four years have definitely established their existence and proved the area to be closely crowded with mine shafts of small diameter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 1926 , pp. 91 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1926

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References

page 91 note * Report, “Excavations at Grime's Graves.” 1914 Page 11.

page 91 note † Blomefield, , History of Norfolk, p. 149Google Scholar. See also Report, Ibid. p. 13.

page 91 note ‡ Journal Ethnological Soc. of London, 1871.

page 93 note * “Sussex Archæolcgical Collections,” vol. LXV. and LXVII.

page 93 note † “On the Date of Grime's Graves and Cissbury Flint Mines,” Archcælogia, LXIII., 1C9 (1912)Google Scholar.

page 93 note ‡ Proceedings, Vol. II., p. 230 and 563Google Scholar.

page 93 note § Proceedings, Vol. III., pp. 104 and 192Google Scholar.

page 99 note * See Proceedings, Vol. II., p. 305Google Scholar.

page 99 note † 1914 “Report,” Ibid. p. 129.

page 99 note ‡ Proceedigs, Vol. II., p. 431, Fig. 84GGoogle Scholar

page 99 note § See papers by Dr. Peake, A. E., notably Proceedings, Vol. II., p. 268–319 and 409–436Google Scholar.

page 99 note ∥ Proceedings, Vol. III., p. 434 and 548Google Scholar.

page 101 note * Armstrong, , Proceedings, Vol. 4, p. 124Google Scholar.

page 101 note † Armstrong, Ibid, p. 113 and 182.

page 101 note ‡ Armstrong, Ibid., p. 116, Figs. 2, 3 and 8.

page 107 note * Armstrong, Ibid, p. 192.

page 109 note * Peake, A. E., Proceedings, Vol. 2, p. 274Google Scholar.

page 115 note * G.G. Report, p. 127.

page 115 note † Armstrong. Ibid. Vol. III., p. 557.

page 125 note * The discovery of a barbed arrow-head by Dr. Peake in July, 1927, on Floor 85B, whilst this paper was passing through the Press, confirms this opinion and supports the evidence of the celt, Fig. 34.