An Ancient Wooden Structure at Ipswich

Abstract

IN the course of excavations—carried out by means of a grant from the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund—in the brickfield of Messrs. A. Bolton and Co., Ltd., in the northern portion of Ipswich, a discovery has been made of the remains of a wooden structure that may be of considerable antiquity. As is widely known, there are preserved, in places, in the sides of the small; dry valley where the brickfield is situated, two superimposed “floors,” or occupation levels, in which a large number of flint implements, flakes, and hammer-stones, together with hearths, fragments of very coarse and primitive pottery (these were found at two sites only), mammalian and some human bones, have been discovered. The investigation of these “floors” has been conducted, at intervals, for the last fifteen years, and, during this period a very complete knowledge has been acquired, both of the type of specimens occurring at these levels, and also of the geological happenings since the time when these prehistoric remains were deposited in the valley.