106
THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD
Near by, at Ilford, Palaeolithic implements have been found
in both high and low level drift.13
The patches of high-level drift which extend along the
southern crest of the Thames Valley from Wandsworth Common,.
over Wartford Heath to Swanscombe Hill, at an average height
of about go feet above the river, have been justly rendered
famous on account of the enormous quantity of flint implements
which they have from time to time yielded.
From the patch of gravel forming Wandsworth Common,.
Lawrence13 has obtained a large number of implements at a
depth of ten feet. They comprise tongue-shaped implements,
scrapers, knives and cores, besides about three thousand flakes.
In the Swanscombe gravel pits14 searchers can always find more
flakes than they can possibly carry away with them, and there is
not a single large flint to be found that has not been artificially
chipped. The flakes are mostly rough and heavy, and none
show any evidence of design in their shape. They would appear
to be chiefly the result of the preliminary blocking out of the big
flints prior to their conversion into the tongue-shaped imple-
ments. Scrapers, spokeshaves, and other flake-tools also occur,
but they are mostly very rude. The better-known tongue-
shaped implements are found in every stage of manufacture,
ranging from the nodule, from which only one or two flakes have
been struck, to the finished weapon. These last differ very much
in size, and exhibit unrivalled diversity of form. Failures and
broken implements that have been re-pointed are common. A
large number of bones and shells have been obtained from these
beds. The Galley Hill patch, now worked away, from which
the human skeleton came,15 belonged to this mass of drift.
Turning to the low-level drift of this tract, there is Spurrell's
remarkable discovery of an old working place at Crayford,16 a
locality which is also famous for the abundance of its animal
remains, which include lemmings and other interesting small
12 See Martin A. C. Hinton, "Pleistocene Deposits of Ilford and Wanstead District,"
Proc. Geologists' Assoc. xvi. (1900): and J. P. Johnson, "Paleolithic Implements from Low-
Level Drift of Thames Valley," Essex Naturalist xii. (1901).
13 In "Working Sites and Inhabited Land Surfaces of the Palaeolithic Period," by J.
Allen Brown, Trans. Middlesex Nat. Hist. Soc. (1889).
14 Some account of these sections is given by H. Stopes in his note "On the Discovery
of Neritina with a Pleistocene Fauna, and worked Flints in High Terrace gravels of Thames
Valley," Journ. Anthrop. Institute, xxix. (1901).
15 See E. T. Newton. "On a Human Skull and Limb-bones found in the Palaeolithic
Terrace Gravel at Galley Hill." Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. li. (1895).
16 F. C. J. Spurrell, "On the Discovery of the place where Palaeolithic implements
were made at Crayford." Q.J.S.S. xxxvi. (1880), and J. P. Johnson, op. cit.