Before proceeding to consider the special features of the Hampshire Basin, and their bearing on palæolithic problems, I should like to say a few words on more general subjects. It is very well known, but perhaps not always remembered, that scarcely one of our commonly accepted conclusions regarding the geological position of the early palæoliths rests on a secure foundation; in almost every case we have to content ourselves, not with a sound logical deduction, but with the most probable of several possible inferences from inadequate and conflicting data. And as an example of what I mean, let us glance at some points in the history of river terraces. First of all the word terrace usually connotes two distinct structures, a basal rock-shelf, and a series of deposits resting on it; and although it is generally assumed that the two are so intimately bound together as to be practically contemporaneous, yet that is not a sure inference, since it is equally possible that there may have been, in some cases at least, a long interval between them. The importance of this possibility to archæologists will be evident when I remind you of the contention of several eminent authorities that the different human cultures of the Pleistocene belong rather to such intervals than to the period of accumulation of the drift to which they are generally referred.

The story of humanity during the period that elapsed between Palæolithic and Neolithic times has proved an intriguing problem to prehistorians for a long time. The Azilian culture (discovered by Piette in the cave of Mas d'Azil) resting as it does on the older Palæolithic industries and covered in turn by layers of Neolithic and Eneolithic age, seemed to bridge the gulf. But the Azilian culture has only a limited distribution and is truly Palæolithic, as is shown by the absence of the remains of domestic animals and pottery. Again, the Tardenoisean culture, with its pigmy industries and typically pigmy burin seemed to supply a bridge, and here we find a culture of wide extent. As before, however, we are still dealing with a Palæolithic culture, and its age in Western Europe (as has been shown at the diggings of Valle) is contemporaneous with the latter part of the Azilian. After the Azilio-Tardenoisian culture came the early Neolithic of which little can be told except in certain localised areas. Now another chapter of the story of these times, mainly referring to Asturias on the North coast of Spain (but including the area further East as far as Biarritz and also embracing sites in North Catalonia) has been added through the perspicacity of the Count de la Vega del Sella, who has unearthed a new and most interesting post-Azilio-Tardenoisean but pre-real Neolithic culture.

In the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia (Vol. III., Part III., pp. 389–430) I gave an account of the discoveries made at the 16-ft. level in the Pliocene Red Crag at Foxhall, near Ipswich, and in the detritus-bed beneath the decalcified Red Crag in Pits Nos. 1 and 2 at Bramford. During 1922 further excavations were conducted at Foxhall, and a number of humanly-flaked flints recovered from the floor occurring at the 16-foot level. The Bramford pits were also again investigated, and it is the purpose of this paper to figure and describe some of the specimens found at the sites mentioned. Full details were given in the paper quoted above of the Foxhall and Bramford Sections, and there is no need to again describe them here, especially as the recent diggings exposed no new geological features. The money to pay for the wages of the workmen engaged in the diggings was very kindly subscribed by the Percy Sladen Fund, the American Museum of Natural History, Sir John Ganzoni, M.P., and by Messrs. F. H. Barclay, A. S. Barnes, M. C. Burkitt, Henry Coates, Frank Corner, Vernon Favell, Robert Gurney, C. Hartley, J. J. Lister, W. M. Newton, W. B. Nichols, R. A. Smith, and F. S. Stevenson. The illustrations for this paper are produced from drawings by Mr. E. T. Lingwood, who, once again, has given valuable help to the cause of science by the free gift of his great artistic powers.

During recent years certain transitional cultural stages have been recognised which link up the Palæolithic and Neolithic civilisations, and for which the term Mesolithic is generally accepted. Of these the Maglemose stage is perhaps the most important, because in it are seen pronounced Palæolithic influences, and survivals, side by side with the first recognisable expressions of Neolithic culture.

The typical station was discovered in 1900 by Dr. Sarauw, the Danish archæologist, in the peat moss of Maglemose, literally “the great moor,” formerly a fresh water lake but now thirteen feet above sea level, and situated near Mullerup, on the west coast of Zeeland.

In a recent number of The Antiquaries Journal (Vol. II., No. 2, pp. 114-117), I described four flint blades of Solutré type found in various parts of East Suffolk, and it is now my purpose to figure and to give an account of seven similar, but more remarkable implements found, with one exception, in the same county. The specimens, to which this note refers, are in the possession of Mr. W. Wells, of South Benfleet, who suggested that I should describe them, and has kindly sent the implements to me for examination.

For the details of the provenance of these blades Mr. Wells is responsible, but I am confident that he has taken all reasonable care in getting together the information which he has forwarded to me for publication. There can be no doubt but that the specimens now to be described constitute one of the finest series of flint blades yet found in this country, and it is gratifying that such specimens have been drawn by Mr. E. T. Lingwood.

The object of this report is to record “finds” rather than to deal with the problem of the date of the mines and implements.

The Circumstances which led up to the Discovery of the Mining Area at Stoke Down.

In 1910 I was ordered to Chichester Barracks for a tour of military duty, and among other things I became Scoutmaster of the 1st Chichester Boy Scout troop. It was these Scouts who first took me to Stoke Down. The Down is situated some three miles due North of the ancient city of Chichester. The boys were busy building a log cabin in the clump of trees on the summit of the Down. The clump is known as Stoke Clump. Being long interested in prehistory my eyes, as was their custom, wandered over the surface. My attention was soon arrested by a considerable quantity of what is generally recognised as Bronze Age Pottery, coarse, red and black, of unwashed clay, with finger nail decoration round the rims.

In an arid district like Breckland, the vicinity of the meres, which provided a water-supply, fish, fowl and molluscs, remote from river-valleys, was eminently suitable for settlements of prehistoric man. Pile-dwellings have been found in two of the Wretham Park meres, and there are evidences of settlements on a small plateau on the east shore of Fowlmere, a similar plateau on the north-east bank of Langmere, and the north and south shores of Ringmere. The bed of Langmere confirms the evidence of an important settlement. The southern portion contains quantities of pot-boilers and a bank projecting into the mere from the south-west corner of the island seems to be chiefly made of pot-boilers. Many flakes, of types and patinas similar to those recorded hereafter, are also found in the bed of Langmere, and on its shores. Flakes and pot-boilers have also been found near most of the other meres, and Dr. Marr has described (Proc. Vol. I., p. 374) “A Late Palæolithic Site on Wretham Heath,” east of Langmere.

The history of early man in Uganda is bound up with that of the inland sea now familiar to Europeans as Lake Victoria or the Victoria Nyanza. The area of this great lake is given as 26,828 square miles (Handbook of Uganda, Ed. II., 1920, p. 26), or about the size of Scotland, but its maximum depth is probably some-what less than the height above ground of the cross of St. Paul's Cathedral. Lake Victoria, then, is just a gigantic puddle.

The history of the Lake is a long one. Beginning as a natural sump, as it probably did in Miocene times, it reached its maximum, in all probability, in the Pliocene, when its area was doubtless quite double that ot its present surface, while its depth was at least four times as great as that now registered.

The discovery of Floor 85, in 1920, with its definite three period stratification, for the first time demonstrated what some people had long suspected, viz., that the Grimes' Graves industry was not confined to any one period exclusively, but was the outcome of a practically continuous local development from an early stage in the pre-historic period down to the end of Neolithic times, and the exploration of this Floor established three important facts:—

(1) That an early industry had existed on the site characterised by the practice of naturalistic engraving on flint crust and the production of flint implements of certain distinctive types from mined flint of the variety known as Floor-stone.

(2) That that industry was the earliest so far recognised at Grimes' Graves and was clearly not contemporary with any of the 366 visible mine shafts on the site, but ante-dated them so considerably that the implements of the lowest level, F.85c, had become patinated and buried beneath accumulations of humus, etc., before mining operations commenced at that place.