Artefacts and their Geological Age

Abstract

IN NATURE of June 9, p. 458, Mr. J. Reid Moir describes some flint implements found embedded in the surface of the ferruginous “pan” at the base of the cliff near Sheringham, and he bases certain conclusions upon this find. From his description of the occurrence of the flints it seems clear that in this case they may not be of the same age as the “pan,” in the upper surface of which they were found embedded. A little while ago, on the beach at Flam-borough, a small deposit of ferruginous conglomerate was found, in which there was embedded a typical Neolithic “scraper,” as well as several pebbles, and the conglomerate proved to be formed upon a horseshoe. But no one here assumed that the horseshoe was Neolithic in date, or that the scraper was made during the past fifty years. More recently, on an excursion to South Ferriby, on the Humber shore, firmly embedded in a ferruginous “pan,” immediately at the base of a cliff of Boulder Clay, was a trouser button. It had to be extracted with a hammer. But no Yorkshire geologist is likely to write to NATURE to try to prove that pre-Glacial man in the Humber district wore trousers.