132 UNEXPLORED FIELDS OF ESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY.
In passing to the Neolithic period, in which the next relics
in order of time occur, we have to note that a hiatus has to be
stepped over. There are three kinds of proofs conspiring to
show the existence of this hiatus. One is the local or complete
extinction of certain animal forms, representing, probably, the
lapse of a considerable period of time. Another is the change
in the character of the river beds ; for, whereas the preceding
deposits were all the result of unquiet agencies, the Alluvium
proper which has now come on, and in which Neolithic relics
are entombed, is the deposit of stiller water. This represents a
lapse of time. A third proof is a manifest advance in the type
of implements found, some being very delicately worked, and
some even polished. These relics are comparable to those in
use by savage races of to-day. The Neolithic people then, to
whom they are ascribed cannot be connected by any possible
means with the Palaeolithic men who had completely
disappeared.
In addition to the alluvial deposits to which we shall par-
ticularly refer, we may say that rudely chipped stones, and
sometimes good implements, belonging to this period are
scattered broadcast over the county, and it is impossible, I
believe, to point to an area of any considerable extent in which
they may not be found. But it is not the surface of the county
that we should call an "unexplored field," and so we will pass
on to direct attention to the entombed relics of that period,
and particularly to their places of sepulture.
These relics lie at the bottom of the alluvial beds, and a
very rich harvest certainly lies under the river Alluvium in par-
ticular. We will instance the case of the lake dwelling that
Mr. Kenworthy found under the Alluvium of the Pods Brook at
Braintree3. This was one of the very few excavations made in
the deposit that has been properly examined, and it yielded a
prodigious number of relics, all, I believe, referable to the
Neolithic age, and one distinctly so, in that it represented a type
of stone spear-head known as the "Danish." When this, I
believe solitary case, is referred to it is generally described as
the Essex Lake Dwelling, the writers forgetting, or not
knowing, that there may be very many others waiting to be
disentombed.
3. A Supposed Neolithic Settlement at Skitt's Hill, Braintree, Essex, by Rev. J. W.
Kenworthy. Essex Naturalist Vol. xi., p. 94.