The Geological Age of the Earliest Palaeolithic Flint Implements

Abstract

The investigations which I have carried out in the Ipswich district of Suffolk, and certain discoveries (to be described shortly) made during the past year at Mundesley, Norfolk, have impressed upon my mind the possibility that the ordinary platessiform and batiform palæolithic flint implements found usually in river terrace gravels are older geologically than has been generally imagined. This, however, is not altogether an original opinion, as the late Professor James Geikie, F.R.S., the late Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly, and Mr. A. S. Kennard, basing their views upon evidence other than that upon which I rely, arrived at a similar conclusion. As is well known, it was stated authoritatively many years ago that our English river-valleys containing implementiferous gravel beds were cut through, and are therefore later than the Chalky Boulder-clay.