XXIII.— A Palaeolithic Industry at Northfleet, Kent

Abstract

The general recognition of man's existence in this country during the deposition of the terrace-gravels of our southern rivers may be said to date from a paper read to this Society by Sir John Evans in 1859; and it was in the same year that McEnery's papers relating to his labours in Kent's Cavern were published, demonstrating the former presence of palaeolithic cave-man on this side of the Channel. The transition from river-drift to cave-deposits, on the other hand, has only recently been illustrated by a close study of the brick-earth deposit on High Lodge Hill near Mildenhall, Suffolk; and the present paper is intended to amplify the evidence for a Moustier period in England, and to bring our deposits of that horizon into still closer relation with the French. If a relative date is incidentally provided for a deposit that has long been somewhat of a mystery to geologists, and if in their turn geologists are moved to do something more for archaeology, the advantage will be considerable. The success that has recently attended what may be called ‘intensive geology’ in connexion with pleistocene man will no doubt find an echo in this country, and our wealth of material has certainly been used with greater advantage in the last few years. The boulder-clays, which are denied to France, should enable workers in this field to straighten out the connexion of man with the glacial period.