THE HUNTERS OF OLD

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12199, 25 July 1925, Page 11

THE HUNTERS OF OLD

Relics of Early Man. THE ENGLAND OF LONG AGO

Buried deep below" immense laid down by the glaciers of tbd Clreat Ice Age, and by an- ancient era overflowed tbe slowly-sinking land, apr# face of Suffolk, hundreds- of thousands of years ago, is to he found a remarkable bed which rests on the harder clay. This former deposit, though of no great thickness, is of surpassing interest and scientific importance, because' in it Mill oid Moir has found .flint implements mads by a race of people who lived, in Suffolk during fhe later part of the profoundly ancient Pliocene period. In the same deposit in which these flint implements occur are the remains of a number of etrange animals now extinct, and it is imagiued from the types of animal represented, that S'uffolk enjoyed a hot climate in their days. During last winter excavations were carried, out by .Mr Reid Moir below the Bed Crag at Bramford, near Ipswich, where, on the east bank of the River are some very large and deep pits. In the larger of these, which is dug into the side of the valley, the exposed section is about 130 ft highland shows a remarkable series of deposits, laid down one upon the other upon the surface of thp white chalk, which is cut into to a depth of about 70ft. GREAT AGE OF MAMMALS It was after the laying-down of the' chalk in that far-off time that the warm-blooded mammals flourished so exceedingly. In. the fullness of time, during the Great Age of Mammals, man appeared, and from the evidence in Suffolk it is known, that, even in the far-off days of the Pliocene Epoch,' I he had already progressed some distance from his original, ape-like condition. At Bramford the deposit containing

fhe flint implements i* in , places 40ft fy-om the surface, and it is clear; that an immense, 'span of ' time has- passed away since these specimens' were made! The' recent diggings have* brought to light a number of -pointed implements, some of which might have been used as lance-heads, borers for making holes in hides, scrapers used in dressing skins, well-made choppers, a hammer-stone with which the flints were fluked, together with many fragments of ‘flint.

These relics show that man in those remote days was a hunter, using the skins of animals for various .purposes, apd from the discovery of burned flints with the implements it is concluded that he had learned how to make a fire.

TJ*E EARLIEST EAST ANGLLANS

Tqward the close of the Pliocene period Suffolk must have been a place of wide, well-watered plains, , rich ip game, and in the warm climate then existing the: earliest East' Anglians must have foUnd themselves in very congenial surroundings. Unfortunately, no human bones have yet been discovered beneath the Red Crag, so it is not known what these people were like. Since they lived, great and widespread changes have occurred in East Anglia. There have - been sinkings and upliftings of the land, the Cromer Forest Bed has been laid down, and the Great Ice Age has come and gone. These stupendous events must have occupied prolonged periods of time, and it may well be that a million years separate ns from the days of the people who lived in Suffolk before the Red Crag was deposited. But even these were not the earliest flint-flake rs, for behind them stretcHes a vast period when still simpler forms of implements were ih use.