A New Celt-Making Floor at Grime's Graves

Abstract

This floor, No. 46, was situated in the open field close to the North border of the plantation, about 50 yards N.E. of Pit 1. Excavations carried out by Mrs. Richardson and myself revealed the presence of a filled-in pit, of which there was no surface indication, the field having been levelled down for cultivation. The hole dug measured about 11 ft. each way, with a maximum depth of 5 ft. At the bottom on one side was a great tip of hard tabular chalk blocks, shot in from the N.E.; on the other side was a tip of sand shot in from the S.W.; and in the V-shaped depression between these two was a mass of flints without any matrix, most of them of great size, the majority covered with a fungus-like coating of carbonate of lime redeposited from solution. This layer reached a thickness of 3½ ft. in one part, thinning out gradually towards the E. side, where it was only a few inches thick. It was almost entirely sealed in by a small tip of chalk blocks and rubble shot in from the N.E., overlain in its turn by a thin layer of flints, which in one or two places rested directly on the main flint layer.