Contributions to the general study of Prehistory have accumulated of late years, but the methods of cooking in early times have received but little attention. This, then, must be my excuse for bringing this subject to your notice to-day.

Prehistoric man has unwittingly divulged the course of his wanderings over continents, not only by the implements which strew his path, and with which we are familiar, but by the burnt stones which mark his simple hearth.

These eloquent but unattractive little relics have a significance equal, if not exceeding that of the artifacts themselves. For their advent coincides with one of the leaps and bounds of man's evolution, when goaded by his sufferings, to crave artificial warmth, he caught at the vagrant spark inadvertently struck from a flint, or produced by the friction of wood, and prisoned it for his use and comfort. How early he became a fire-maker we have yet to determine, but the insignificant heating-stone (so largely used in primitive cookery), as we trace it back to the horizon of its first appearance, may presently teach us.

In the autumn of 1920 some of the workmen on the Sewage Farm of the Newbury Corporation were engaged in levelling a low mound and depositing the soil in a hollow close by. During these operations hey came upon a few small pointed-butted celts and a number of lakes, most of which they threw away; one celt and a few flakes were taken the following April to the Newbury Museum. The site was inspected without delay, and resulted in the discovery of imilar flakes in a thick deposit of black soil immediately underlying he surface soil; the problem was, however, further complicated by the discovery of Romano-British potsherds in the same deposit.

Mr. Crawford and I resolved, therefore, to undertake a systematic exploration of the site, as soon as the crops were off the ground. In the meantime, while cultivating the land during the summer, the workmen recovered most if not all of the implements which they had discarded the previous autumn.

The flints from the Thatcham site must be divided for purposes of description into two large classes—(1) those which were found under the compact layer of peaty soil or under the shell-malm, (2) those which were found elsewhere on the site. Strictly speaking, only those belonging to class (1) can be proved to belong to a single period, since they alone were sealed up under an undisturbed, naturally formed deposit. But there can be no doubt whatever that all the worked flints found on the site in whatever position, are contemporary; I shall therefore describe the far more numerous objects in class (2) first. Before doing so two important pieces of negative evidence must be recorded. Not a single fragment of ground or polished stone was found. Not a single piece of pottery was found under the peat or the shell-malm; nor was any but Roman pottery found elsewhere on the site. There can therefore be no doubt that the Roman pottery is entirely unconnected with the flint implements.

Hackpen Hill, 888-ft., is the highest ridge of the Marlborough Downs properly so called, and has already been described in my paper on the Palæoliths found on its summit. The southern hills, overlooking the Pewsey Valley, rise to 965-ft. The top of the hill, hough narrow, is flat, and bears pockets of Tertiary remains, the ub-soil being of a clayey nature almost throughout.

Until recently, five large fields were tilled, and seventeen years ago a sixth was still under the plough. The space covered by these was 1½ miles in length; and on an average, about ⅓ mile in width, two of the fields stretching a little way down the dip slope of the hill.

Reference generally may be made to an article on the Classification of Burins or Gravers by Mr. Miles C. Burkitt, M.A., p. 306, Vol. III. of the Proceedings. The object of this article is to illus-trate Gravers from the Microlithic flint sites in West Yorkshire. Specimens have indeed been found in past years, but it is only recently that they have received recognition. And it is hoped that they may help to solve the problem of the age of this industry.

At present there is no clear evidence to dissociate any of the implements here illustrated from the well known microlithic industry of the Pennine Chain. There is, however, some reason to believe that most, but not all, of the Gravers were made during the earlier period of the local industry; whilst the beaked graver-like tools, absent at first, undoubtedly continued to its later stages. Also that gravers associated with tools of La Madeleine type may be established, stratigraphically below the pygmy series.

Not only is Grimes' Graves an essentially East Anglian site, but it is also one of the most interesting, and most perplexing, prehistoric sites of Britain, presenting many controversial problems which only persistent research and careful observation will solve.

Recent work upon the site has marked a distinct advance in this direction, notably by the fortunate discovery in 1920 of Floor 85 with its definite stratification, and evidences of successive occupation during at least five widely separated intervals of time. With Dr. R. V. Favell as a co-worker, excavations were resumed upon this floor in August, 1921, and continued for six days. An additional 40 square yards was carefully and systematically explored down to the level of the boulder clay, resulting in the recovery of a further series of important flint implements and examples of engraving. Owing to the favourable nature of the site with its stratified chipping and occupation levels, each sealed and separated by sterile layers of humus, and closely compacted chalk debris, it has thrown important light upon some of the problems of the Grimes' Graves industry, and should enable not only certain definite conclusions to be arrived at, but materially assist in the ultimate classification of the various cultural forms of the implements from the Graves generally.

In a paper published in 1917 I described a series of ancient “floors” occurring in the sides of the valley occupied by the brick works of Messrs. A. Bolton and Co., Ltd., Henley Road, Ipswich. Since this date I have been able, thanks to the generosity of the Right Honourable the Earl of Iveagh, K.P., and the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, to continue the investigation, and it is now my purpose to give an account of the results obtained in these later diggings. Before doing so, however, I would wish to express my sincere thanks to the directors of the brick works company for the facilities freely granted me to carry out the excavations, and to Dr. R. H. Rastall and Mr. E. T. Lingwood for the invaluable help they have rendered me in the preparation of this report.

The general geological details and manner of formation of the small valley in which the diggings were conducted are set out fully in the paper quoted above. But, my continued examination of the strata exposed in the valley under consideration has led me to certain new and somewhat far-reaching conclusions regarding them.

Feeling that my own study of the cultures of Palæolithic and Neolithic Man would be helped by a glimpse into the Æean. Bronze Age as studied by classical archæologists, I took the opportunity of 3 months free time to visit a number of the Minoan (Bronze Age) sites in Crete, as well as the corresponding Helladic localities on the mainland of Greece. The return journey was made by Vienna and Buda-Pesth, in order to study for a short time in the museums there, and the dissimilarity between the Bronze Age cultures north of the Alps and those of the Ægean area, which I had been visiting, was extremely marked. The Bronze Age of the North comes very much into the purview of English Prehistorians and has its due place in our Proceedings. But the Ægean Bronze Age is included under classical archæology, and so it seemed to me that, having had the opportunity of studying in the field with such men as Evans and Wace, a few notes might not be out of place in our E. A. Journal. And more especially is this so when one considers that the Ægean area is on a direct road between the early cultures of what is now Persia and Asia Minor, and the west.

The implements forming the subject of this note were found at the base of the Blown Sand Dunes which extend along the coast of Pas de Calais and attain, in the neighbourhood of Etaples, a height of 60 metres.

The principal sites are grouped about the outstanding pinacle of sand immediately opposite the Etaples Military Cemetery, and are on the east of the road to Boulogne and about one mile out of Etaples.

This pinacle of sand is the highest dune seen from the road (it reaches up to about 50 metres) and it is in the dunes ranging north and south of this pinacle, where the wind has scooped out hollows in the western face, and reached down to the underlying chalk and gravel, that the implements and flakes occur so abundantly.

Generally speaking there are low dunes bordering the Canche River, but on the east of the main road they rise in a fairly pronounced range to between 40 and 50 metres, then they fall away to about 25-30 metres and rise again, ¼ to ½ a mile further inland to about 60 metres.

The flint flakes from the Elephas antiquus bed of Clacton-on-Sea have been known for many years, and were collected by the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy. I obtained a large series between the years 1911 and 1916, but their affinities remained an enigma to me until they were examined by the Abbé N. Breuil, who denned them as Mesvinian. When once it had been suggested, one realized that this determination was obviously correct, and it has since been confirmed by several continental authorities who are intimately acquainted with the Mesvinian of Belgium.

Stratigraphy. Remnants of the High Terrace with Chellian implements occur in the district (at Frinton, Weeley, etc.) at levels of 70 to 85 feet O.D. These contain much Lower Greensand chert from the Wealden area, and I think they must be referred to the main river of the Thames basin.

The Clacton bed is the silting-up of a tributary channel which cuts across the High Terrace, and of which the base lies below the present level of low tide.

The writer of this article was lucky enough to find last August a large ovate implement of the Early Palæolithic period in Yorkshire, after many years of careful searching; he is indebted to Mr. E. T. Lingwood for the drawings of the same, for which help he offers his grateful thanks.

The site of this find is Upper Nidderdale, just within the boundary of the West Riding. At the far end of the dale, and some six and a half miles from its source, the river Nidd, which up to this point has run due East, makes a bend, practically a. right angle, to the South.

Some three hundred yards below this point an interesting geological phenomenon occurs in the shape of a triangular fault with its apex to the South, which has thrust up the Carboniferous Limestone on both sides of the valley.

Through this the river, with the help of the glaciers, has cut its way.

This strip of limestone is about half a mile long and below this the river continues its course for some distance through the Millstone Grit series, Nidderdale being, from a geological point of view, a Millstone Grit dale.

(This inset is brought to the notice of the readers of this issue of the “Proceedings,” not with the intention of endorsing the views therein stated, but out of respect to one of the chief founders of this Society, the late Dr. W. Allen Sturge, whose immense activities in pre-history are well known, and whose critical acumen led him to favour the acceptance of Drayson's contention as a WORKING HYPO- THESIS for the elucidation of the various ages to be assigned to flint cultures in East Anglia. Several discoveries since his death have done much to favour an unexpected, extension of the stages of man's progress, and of the enormous antiquity to be assigned to primitive man, whilp certain facts on the astronomical sidtihave so strengthened the position of Drayson's supporters as to make their claims a matter inviting serious attention.)