Palæolithic Implements from the Hills near Dunstable

Abstract

DURING the past twelve months I have found a small number of Palæolithic implements at great elevations in North Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire, unconnected with existing river valleys. Four of the implements—1386, 1387, 1393, and 1398 in my collection—are from Caddington: height above Ordnance datum, 595 feet 9 inches. The dry valley close by, to the west, is 470 feet, and the ground gradually falls southwards to 409 feet at the source of the Ver, near Markyate Street, at a distance of 1 3/4 mile. The sections at Caddington exhibit red “clay with flints,” brick earth (or clay), and tenacious brown clay or loam, surmounted by blackish earth, containing broken white-coated flints, a few ochreous flints, and numerous blackish Tertiary pebbles. The whole deposit rests on chalk, and varies in depth from 2 feet to 50 feet. Aware of the importance of finding the worked flints in the undisturbed material, I have, after long searching, found a single implement and one or two flakes in situ at the stony bottom of the upper deposit of tenacious brown clay at a depth of 3 and 4 feet from the surface. A single small Palæolithic implement I have found on the surface at Kensworth: height above Ordnance datum, 759 feet 8 inches. The bottom of the valley, 1¼ mile to the west, at the source of the Ouzel, is 414 feet. Half an ovate Palæolithic implement, obviously derived from the hill-tops, I have found in a field at the bottom of a chalky valley near Houghton Regis. The Caddington implements are pointed (or tongue-shaped), slightly abraded, small in size, and cinnamon-brown in colour. The interest attached to these finds rests not only on the great heights mentioned and the positions away from existing river valleys, but in the nature, age, and mode of deposit of the upper tenacious brown clay in which the implements are embedded. The implements themselves agree in make and appearance with the well-known brown or ochreous implements often found in non-ochreous sand, &c., in existing river valleys. I have at present seen no traces of fossil bones or fresh-water shells in the deposits mentioned.