“GRIMES’ GRAVES”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 99, 21 January 1936, Page 2

“GRIMES’ GRAVES”

Archaeologists’ HuntingGround

The “Grimes’ Graves” at Brandon, Suffolk, England, have been the happy hunting-ground of archaeologists for a considerable number of years, and besides a scale model of the workings, which themselves cover about 20 acres, there are at the British Museum several cases tilled with flint implements and other finds which point, to the great antiquity of the mines. Two very interesting exhibits are pieces of flintcrust engraved with crude representations of deer and other animals. The flint from which the implements were made occurs in seams of varying quality in the chq,lk, and the prehistoric men used to sink shafts to the best seams, which were then worked horizontally. These shafts have been long since filled in by blown sand and other accumulated material, but their traces can be distinctly seen as circular depressions. As many as 3666 of these remain.

The picks used by these Stone Age men were made of the antlers of deer, specimens of which can be seen at the museum together with lump? of chalk showing the marks of their use; but what must be the most interesting sight of all—at least to the layman—is the thumbprint of one of these prehistoric miners. There it is to be seen on a patch of clay adhering to one of the picks—looking not a whit the worse for its 4000 or more years’ sojourn under the earth.