Industries of the Cromer Forest Bed

Abstract

CLEMENT REID, in his well-known description of the deposits of the Cromer Forest Bed in Norfolk, states1: “Both the fauna and flora, leaving out the large mammals and other extinct forms, are curiously like that of the ‘Broad District’ of Norfolk at the present day; and this, like the rest of the evidence, points to a wide alluvial plain with lakes and sluggish streams, bounded on the west by a slightly higher sandy country covered with fir-forests and distant from any hills.” The climate of this pleasant hunting country, now obliterated by the North Sea and great thicknesses of glacial deposits, was evidently genial, and we may suppose very suitable for the primitive people inhabiting the region in those remote days. It is, in fact, somewhat difficult to imagine a terrain, rich in wood, flint of first-class quality, and big game, more suitable for the successful activities of the men of the Old Stone Age, and researches carried out in, recent years have demonstrated that a succession of races of these people lived in the valley of the ancient Rhine.