The most complete section of the glacial series of deposits described and illustrated in Lamplugh's classic paper entitled “On the drifts of Flamborough Head” is that which is located at Danes' Dyke.

Referring to this section Lamplugh says:—

“I have spent much time in exploring this section, and consider that the beds up to this horizon represent the Basement Clay, while the persistent upper band of brown Boulder-clay (3) is all that remains of the upper Clay of Sewerby, this bed and the underlying sand and gravel (3b) together taking the place of the Purple Clays of Bridlington and Holderness. Above this clay lie the Sewerby Gravels (2b), the lower part chalkless and the upper layers composed chiefly of chalk-pebbles, as noticed farther west. A few feet of loamy stuff overlies these gravels at the cliff top (2c), resembling a weathered Boulder-clay, and a little farther east (near Hartindale Gutter) a seam of Boulder-clay certainly appears in these gravels, their contemporaneity with the uppermost part of the Boulder-clay, and consequently their Glacial age, being thus fully established.”

The chronology of the flint dagger which is the subject of the present paper has been discussed by R. A. Smith, who established the date of the type in the first phase of the Bronze Age, the period to which it had already been assigned by Montelius. A summary ot the list made by Mr. Smith is given in Appendix II below (p. 354-5); the few examples recorded with datable associations since 1919 bring the total up to 26.

Sir John Evans's description, adopted by Mr. Smith, gives the length and breadth of the type as varying generally between 5 and 7 ins. and 1½ to 2½ ins. respectively, although both larger and smaller examples occur. The blades are thin in proportion to their length, and lanceolate in outline, although in this respect there is a certain amount of variation. Both faces are flaked, and the working is generally of a very high character. In some cases major excrescences have been reduced by grinding.

Some typological development may be observed in the forms, although this cannot be compared with the elaborate evolution of the well-known Scandinavian series (below, p. 350). The changes take place in the butt. The earliest form typoiogically speaking, would seem to be a simple leaf-shaped blade, the widest part of which is approximately at the middle. There is no distinction between blade and tang or handle, and the latter is generally rounded off. Such daggers as the Green Low, Alsop Moor (Appendix I, no. 27, and fig. 1), and Acklam Wold (126) examples represent this form. It is not always easy to decide, however, whether other blades approximating to this shape represent a so-called prototype, and care has also to be taken to differentiate surface-found laurel-leaf blades of Solutrean age, although these are more usually pointed at both ends.

The Rock Shelter situated on the Middle Terrace at Le Moustier was excavated by Lartet and Christy in 1863, and yielded a series of implements of a special culture to which de Mortillet gave the name of Le Moustier. This industry, which to the early prehistorians seemed relatively simple, with the side-scraper and point as its typical implements, has now shown itself to be complex, owing to the discovery of new sites of Le Moustier date, very widely distributed geographically, and to the careful re-examination of the classical site itself. The Abri classique on the Middle Terrace at Le Moustier has been the subject of subsequent excavations by Bourlon, Chastaing, Hauser and Peyrony. The deposits in the Lower Terrace have also been examined by Rivière and Hauser. It was here that in 1908 the latter discovered the skeleton of Neanderthal type now in the Berlin Museum. In 1910 the Rock Shelter on the Middle Terrace, together with the Lower Terrace, was purchased by the French Government, and, subsequent to this, Peyrony has carried out on the Lower Terrace the admirable series of excavations, which he has carefully described in a recent publication. The present paper deals briefly with the morphology of the implements from the various layers as determined by Peyrony, and applies the statistical methods developed by the author to the discrimination of the various layers and the correlation of the implements from the Middle and Lower Terraces.

There are in Ipswich Museum some 18 beakers, more or less complete, together with fragments of at least four more. As these pots are all from a restricted area of south-east Suffolk, and have, with one exception, never before been described, I have undertaken, with the consent and help of the Secretary, to make a few observations upon them. With tine exception of a group from Brantham, and a single example from Wherstead, all the beakers were recovered loose ın gravel digging or cliff-falls. Near Brantham Hall, near the point where the Stour broadens out into its estuary, three beakers were found by Mr. G. Maynard together in the grave of a woman buried with a child; the pots were discovered near the flexed shin bones of the woman. Just south of this grave, was found another one containing a single beaker. Near these graves, which were discovered in gravel-digging, was a disc barrow, from the central part of which Mr. Maynard recovered 16 fragments of a single beaker, while from the trench, the late Mr. E. T. Lingwood succeeded in obtaining a fragment of a second beaker. Of the group from the woman's grave (Figs. 3, 4, 5, Pl. XXVIII.), Fig 3 has a smooth outline with an everted lip, is decorated over its whole area by seventeen horizontal lines coarsely incised, and has a maximum height of 4.9 inches; Fig. 4 is a crudely formed pot standing no more than 3½ inches high, poorly decorated with faint finger-nail impressions; Fig. 5, standing 6 inches high, is of fine paste with the smooth outline typical of Abercromby's type B, decorated with horizontal lines and linear chevrons arranged over the whole surface.

The skeleton described below was discovered recently in Southery Fen, Norfolk, by men employed in widening and deepening a drainage ditch. It was unfortunately removed before it could be seen in situ, but I was able by an examination of the ground not only to determine the exact level of the skeleton, but also to recover the lady's bronze pin or awl. She had lain on top of a layer of compressed sedges 2ins.-3ins. thick, which rested directly on undisturbed clay, and she was covered by 1ft. 9ins. of peat. The place where she was found was 28 yards away from one of the second type of Major Fowler's extinct waterways (“Old Run,” Plate XXXII.). There was no evidence of burial, and we conjecture that she had been drowned, carried down by this river, dropped among the sedges bordering it when the flood subsided, and subsequently covered by the growth of peat.

According to the workmen's account she was lying face downwards with one arm across her face and the other arm extended. The bracelet of jet beads (Plate XXXIII., a) is said to have been round the wrist of the extended arm; pin or awl (Plate XXXIII., b) must have been worn near the waist.

In 1922 Miss N. F. Layard gave as her presidential address an account of some prehistoric cooking-places, which she had discovered near a stream at Buckenham Tofts, Norfolk (Proc., P.S.E.A., Vol. III., Part IV.). One of the hearths excavated consisted of a triangular mass of calcined flints, up to two feet in depth, and covering an area of over 100 square yards. This was on one end of a mound rising about ten feet above the general level of the swamp bordering the stream. Amongst this material were found several flint implements, including knives typical of the Bronze Age. There were also found two sherds of pottery corresponding closely to a known Bronze Age type, though this also continued into the Early Iron Age.

Knowing nothing of Miss Layard's discoveries, in 1927 I came across similar deposits of pot-boilers, etc., at Hoe, near East Dereham. These are on either side of a small stream, which eventually runs into the River Wensum. Mr. Sainty and Mr. Newnham were good enough to come over and examine them, and Mr. Newnham subsequently gave a short account of them at the December meeting that year (Proc., P.S.E.A., Vol. V., Part III. page 311).

I was able to revisit the site in June this year (1931), and at one place where, however, there was hardly a mound at all, a layer of pot-boilers, 6 ins. deep, was found under about 6 ins. of turf and soil. Excavation of an area 12 feet by 8 feet produced nearly a pailful of pottery fragments, three dozen scrapers, and an implement of the bone-breaker type, besides numbers of flakes and cores.

In January, 1930, my brother started work on a garage on the west side of the Great North Road between Baldock and Stevenage, in the parish of Great Wymondley, and 180 yards south of the milestone indicating 34 miles to London. A hole in the chalk containing black soil and pottery was found in sinking a petrol tank.

It was a bowl-shaped pit (see Plate XXXV., Pit 1), showing in section on the chalk wall just dug, its greatest width being 8 ft., and the depth 5 ft. from the surface. Above the solid chalk was 2 ft. of soil, shading evenly from yellow at the base to dark yellow at the surface, and showing no variation or disturbance over the pit, as if the whole top-soil had been laid down after the pit had been filled in. I was fortunate in having Mr. T. C. Lethbridge, F.S.A., to help me clear this and the other pits, and on the first day we had the help and advice of Dr. Cyril Fox. F.S.A., and Mr. Louis Clarke, F.S.A.

By digging down from the surface we found that the pit was irregular in shape and extended 6 ½ ft. back from the chalk face. The filling was of dark soil varying in colour.

There were three layers which, from the quantity of wood ash in them, might have been hearths. In the filling were numerous brook pebbles cracked and blackened by fire (potboilers probably), and many potsherds.

This tumulus was first noticed by Mr. Sainty and myself in April, 1931, whilst on an expedition in search of implements of Cissbury type, of which we had found a considerable number in this locality. In appearance it did not seem to differ very much from the numerous mounds left bv warreners digging for rabbits, and, in fact, we had examined several such mounds showing almost the same elevation above the surrounding heath; but as this contained no rabbit workings and such parts as were not covered by gorse showed a thick covering of turf, it appeared interesting, and we marked it down for further examination at the next possible opportunity.

We were not able to visit the spot again till August 27th, when after a short time spent in searching for implements in the neighbouring field, we commenced digging, removing turf about five inches thick and opening a narrow trench. It was not long before we came across flakes, and threw out some 15 or 20, all showing signs of human workmanship, some with facetted bulbs of percussion, and finally a good chopper of Cissbury type.

As similar flakes had been found by us in the side of an old stone pit about 120 yards distant, we were very doubtful if it could be a tumulus after all, but decided to settle the matter by excavating till undisturbed earth was reached. At a depth of about three feet a tiny fragment of charcoal was turned up, so we at once enlarged the trench to allow for more careful working.

Since my paper on the Clactonian Industry at Swanscombe was read in 1929, I have obtained many more implements from Barnfield Pit (the one there described) and also a large collection from Rickson's Farm Pit.

The lower gravel at Rickson's Farm Pit has yielded the same culture as the lower gravel in Barnneld Pit, and it underlies a shell-bed containing I heodoxus cantianus (Ken. and B. B. Wood.), which is succeeded by a gravel containing well finished St. Acheul hand-axes in both places. The Acheulian tools from Rickson's Farm Pit differ somewhat from those obtained in Barnfield Pit in that there are fewer of the pear-shaped, pointed implements. The usual type in the former pit is thinner, more ovate, and frequently with a pronounced ‘twist’ of the reversed S kind.