The Flint Implements Of Sub-Crag Man

Extract

On the 3rd of October, 1909, I found on a stone heap in Messrs. Bolton and Laughlin's brickfield near Ipswich a large flint implement fashioned from a cylindrical nodule and flaked to a cutting edge at one end. This implement, which is obviously very massive, weight 8¾lbs., is deeply patinated on its worked surfaces a yellowish-brown colour, and has a very hard ferruginous deposit attached to portions of its crust.

Following on this discovery I commenced, searching for others, and eventually found them lying on the London Clay under a seam of decalcified crag, and associated with many bones and phosphatic nodules such as are met with at other ordinary bases of the Red Crag. This decalcified crag occurs in two basin-shaped hollows, one 56 yards wide and the other 45 yards, in the London Clay. The general arrangement of the beds (Plate I.) in the hollows is as follows:—

1. Top sand and gravel, in places up to 9 feet in thickness.

2. Middle Glacial Sands, with sarsen stones, maximum thickness 12 feet to 15 feet.

3. Decalcified crag, with casts of shells up to 3 feet. This is very hard in the eastern hollow, and rests upon an uneven floor of London Clay, containing pockets filled with pebbles, and boulders of flint and micaceous sandstone.