207
EOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS FROM THE PLAT-
EAU GRAVEL AROUND WALDERSLADE,
KENT.
By J. P. JOHNSON.
[Read March 8th, 1902].
My attention was first drawn to the occurrence on the
higher ground around Walderslade (which is a delightful little
place nestling in a hollow in the North Downs near Chatham)
of flint implements belonging to the earliest, or Eolithic, period
of the Stone Age, when engaged in surveying there during the
latter part of last year, 1901. They were always associated with
characteristic plateau gravel debris in the shape of pebbles of
chert, pieces of ironstone and the peculiarly stained flints. But
most of them came from one or two spots near the escarpment
where, judging from the abundance of these last in the surface
soil, there must still be some patches of this early drift left
in situ.
It is my intention in this paper to figure and describe some
of the more interesting of these implements, but in order that
they may be more readily understood it will be necessary to
include a few remarks on Eolithic implements in general.
In 1889 Sir Joseph Prestwich gave an account of some very
primitive flint, implements which had been discovered by
Benjamin Harrison around the village of Ash on the chalk
plateau known as the North Downs. From their peculiar red-
brown colour he connected them with an old gravel of which
only a few patches now remain on the highest portions-of the
plateau, the main mass having been removed by denudation.
Since then pits have been sunk in the neighbourhood and the
contemporaniety of the implements with the plateau gravel has
been established beyond doubt. This gravel is the oldest
deposit1 which has yielded relics of prehistoric man, and the
rudely trimmed pieces of flint which it contains constitute the
very earliest attempt of prehistoric man to make a piece of stone
suitable for use as an implement.
I. The chipping on certain flints from deposits of greater age have from time to time been
brought forward as evidence of their use by man or a man-like animal, but they are hardly
convincing. A concise review of the question will be found in Mr. E. T. Newton's address
to the Geologists' Association in 1897, with whose impartial conclusions one is disposed to
agree. On the other hand it is only fair to add that Mr. A. Rutot (Bulletin At la Societe d'
Anthropologie de Bruxelles, vol. xix., 1901) accepts the artifical nature of the chipped flints
from the Miocene strata of Thenay, Puy-Courny and Otta, and from the Pliocene deposits of
Saint-Prest. The Plateau Gravel is probably of late Pliocene age.