Research Items

Abstract

Ancient Man in the Gipping-Orwell Valley.—The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia for 1930, vol. 6, pt. 3, contains a study of the deeply buried deposits of the non-tidal valley of the Gipping above Ipswich and the tidal part of the valley of the Orwell below Ipswich. These deposits lie in deeply cut and steep-sided channels, filled apparently with glacial material buried beneath the deposits lying on the floor of the present valley. They are evidently of high antiquity. (I.) The Gipping Valley. (1) After the retreat of the ice which laid down the Upper Chalky Boulder Clay (third glacial epoch of East Anglia) and while climatic conditions were still severe, Aurignacian peoples were living in the valley. Afterwards 11 ft. of gravel was laid down, with an increase of cold conditions. It is possible that one bed represents the fourth glacial epoch of East Anglia, and that the flint implements it contains were swept down and redeposited over the slightly less old implements found beneath. (2) The Flood Plain Terrace. In ascending order are encountered (a) a Combe Capelle floor of Early Mousterian age, (b) Early Solutrean, fine flint blades in loam belonging to the third inter-glacial period below Flood Plain gravel. Mammalian bones, among them the mammoth, belong possibly to this horizon. (3) The gravel of the Flood Plain Terrace of post-Early-Solutrean age contains a large number of derivative flakes and implements, to be associated with the passing away of the fourth glacial epoch, the Boulder Clay of which contains implements of upper pal¦olithic type. (4) The beds above the Flood Plain Terrace. From the loamy peat deposit have been recovered a number of long, thin blades of flint probably of Magdalenian age. (II.) The tidal portion of the Orwell Valley. Overlying the basal gravel is a bed of compact peat, from which it is probable there came a skull comparable with the Tilbury skull and possibly contemporary with the Combe Capelle type of implement. Above the lower peat is a shingly gravel capped by peat and mud in alternate layers. From the base of the alluvium probably came implements exhibiting affinities with the Magdalenian. In both the Gipping and Orwell valleys the neolithic period is represented, both geologically and arch¦ologically only in the superficial beds.