Palæolithic Implements—New Localities in the Thames Valley, near London

Abstract

IN NATURE, for July 15, 1880, p. 253, Mr. P. H. Pepys drew attention to a section then being made through beds of river gravel and brick earth near the West Drayton Station of the Great Western Railway. I had an opportunity of going to West Drayton on July 27, 1880, so I walked through the cutting towards Langley. My quest was for relics of primæval man, and I was rewarded by finding not only several flint flakes, but the batt end of a massive implement broken in Palæolithic times. This was just north of Langley Station, in Buckinghamshire, and the first Palæolithic relics, as far as I know, detected in that county. The workmen in the cutting for the new canal were such a rough lot that I found it impossible to fraternise with them, so my subsequent visits were all made on Sundays. During these walks I lighted on ten implements and a large number of flakes at Langley and Iver, all in the valley of the Coin, and a river until now (as far as I know) not described as implementiferous. In gravel brought from the pit close to Taplow Station I found a single implement, a large trimmed flake, and numerous simple flakes; this position is also in the county of Buckingham. At West Drayton, in Middlesex, in the valley of the Coln, I lighted on five implements and numerous flakes. East of West Drayton, in a pit near Botwell, in the valley of the Yedding Brook, hitherto undescribed as implement-bearing, I found a single implement; this was in the pit near Bull's Bridge. In the same valley at Hillington, and other places I have found several other implements. In all the excavations from Slough to Acton I have found both implements and flakes. In the new railway cutting from Gunnersbury to Hounslow I have found four implements, one close to Hounslow, a massive butt, and many flakes. This cutting has been a very interesting one, from the abundance of the fossil shells of fresh-water molluscs found in the sands, especially near the bridge under the Hanwell Road. One shell very abundant, and, as far as my observation goes, absent from the sands of North-east London, is Achatina acicula, Müll., kindly named for me by Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys. I believe this is the first record of fresh-water shells from the Palæolithic sands of the Ealing district. Since my paper on the Valley of the Brent was read before the Anthropological Institute, in June, 1879, I have found many more implements in the positions there mentioned. At North-east London, and especially in the Valley of the Lea, I have been able to greatly extend the range of Palæolithic man. In addition to the localities mentioned in my paper read before the Anthropological Institute, in June, 1878, and published in February, 1879, I am now able to mention London Fields, Homerton, in the south, a position south of Dalston Junction, and nearer the Thames than the places first given by me, Hackney, near the railway station, Abney Park Cemetery, South Hornsey, Highbury, Stamford Hill, Upper Edmonton, Lower Edmonton, Bush Hill Park, Forty Hill, Enfield, and Cheshunt; the pit at the last place, which formerly produced flakes only, has since furnished three implements—one an example of the first class. On the east side of the Lea I have found implements in the gravels of Stratford, Leyton, Leytonstone, Wanstead, Walthamstow, and Higham Hill—a magnificent example from the last place. Further east, and in the Valley of the Roding (first pointed out by me as a river bearing implements in its gravels)—at Barking—I have found two implements, and elsewhere in the neighbourhood, as at Ilford and Upton, numerous flakes. Still further east, at Gray's Thurrock, West Tilbury, and Southend, I have evidence of the presence of primæval man; at the latter place, a rude make-shift implement, and a scrapingtool with twin bulbs of percussion. These were found by my two sons. I have not mentioned all the positions I know in this letter, or re-mentioned those given in my two papers, but rather the positions I can afford to dispense with. It shows, however, especially when considered with the discoveries at Reading and Oxford, what a vast cohort of men once lived all along the Thames and its northern tributaries in Palæolithic times.