PRIMAEVAL MAN IN THE VALLEY OF THE LEA.
37
appears to be without implements, and the gravel on the south is
implementiferous. In the gravel to the south of the Lea, unabraded
implements and flakes occur, quite comparable with the implements
of Clapton and Stoke Newington, close to London. The artificially
chipped flints at Wheathamp-
stead are generally tinted with
a milky film of decomposition.
In Fig. 1, I have engraved
one-half actual size, a Palaeo-
lithic implement found by me
at Wheathampstead, and in
Fig. 2, a little block of flint,
also half actual size, neatly
trimmed at one end to a
scraper-like edge, and found

Fig. 1.— Palaeolithic Implement from Wheathamp-
stead, Herts, (one-half actual size.)
by me at the same place.* I

have also found two very good
characteristic Palaeolithic scrapers at Wheathampstead, heavier in
character than Neolithic scrapers, and numerous flakes, all un-
abraded. The contours of the large scale Ordnance maps show
that the implementiferous gravel really belongs to the Lea.
Two miles nearer to the source of the
Lea, viz., at Harpenden, I have found a
single Palaeolithic flake, but, strange to say,
it is deeply ochreous and abraded, and so
seems to indicate that it is a flake derived
from some other gravel, and not innate
with the Lea gravel. Various glacial stones
and fossils, and an abundance of Lydian
stone, occur in the Lea gravels at Harpenden.
Five miles still nearer the source of the Lea
than Harpenden, viz., at Luton, and less than
three miles from the very source of the river,

I have found in the low gravels of the Lea
one unabraded Palaeolithic flake.
Fig. 2. — Palaeolithic tool from
Wheathampstead, Herts, (one-
half actual size.)
These discoveries prove the presence of
Palaeolithic man, virtually from the Thames in the south to Leagrave
in the north, where the river Lea first bubbles from the ground.
From the gravels twelve miles further north at Flitwick, and in no
• Mr. Worthington Smith has kindly presented these woodcuts to our journal.—ED.