IX. On the discovery of a novel type flint implements below the base of the Red Crag of Suffolk, proving the existence skilled workers of flint in the Pliocene age
The discovery to which this memoir relates was made by Mr. J. Reid Moir, of Ipswich, in the autumn of 1909. He had for some two or three years collected and become familiar with the well-known “almond-shaped” and more elongated “kite-shaped” forms of flint implements as well as the flakes and scrapers from the Pleistocene sands and gravels of the neighbourhood of Ipswich, where they are abundant. It occurred to him, in October, 1909, to examine some large flints which in small numbers were being turned out in a brickmaker’s pit at Ipswich, from a bed forming the base of the Red Crag, resting on a well-marked surface of London Clay. The brickmaker’s pit is a large one, lying one mile north of Christchurch Park, Ipswich, and belongs to Messrs. Bolton and Laughlin. An escarpment, nearly 300 yards long, has been formed by the removal of overlying strata in order to arrive at the clay used in brickmaking. It shows, at the spot where Mr. Moir found his first Sub-Crag implements, the following beds :— 1. Top sand and gravel, 7 feet. 2. Middle Glacial sands, 15 feet. 3. Decalcified Crag, with casts of shells, 3 feet, resting on 4. An uneven floor of London Clay, in the hollows of which are pebbles, large flints, box-stones and micaceous sandstone.