164
NOTES ON A HUMAN SKELETON, FOUND
AT FOXEARTH, ESSEX.
By JOHN M. WOOD, M.I.C.E.
[WITH PLATE V.]
Read November 30th, 1907
ON lately visiting Foxearth, a small parish in the Stour
Valley, near the northern boundary of Essex, I was
shown a human skull, which at once engaged my attention from
its size and evident age. On enquiry I found the labourer who
had picked it up in a gravel-pit. The pit is situated two hundred
yards east of Western Hall, just over the Foxearth boundary
in the parish of Liston, in Field No. 25, and shown on Map vi.
6, 25 inch Ordnance Survey. (See Fig. 1.)
This gravel-pit has been open for some years. The work-
man referred to was digging and carting gravel therefrom, and
was searching for something to block the wheel of his cart, when
he picked up the skull, thinking that it was a great stone. The
inference is that the skull slipped down with part of the cliff
during the excavating operations. The floor of the pit is about
12 feet deep at the spot. When found the skull was encased in
loam with fibrous roots in the cavities ; it was in nearly perfect
condition, the lower jaw being in position, and the set of teeth
perfect, although by an unfortunate accident the skull was
dropped, thereby detaching the jaw and knocking out one of the
teeth.
The presence of the fibrous roots led me to suppose that
the original resting-place of the skull had been somewhere near
the upper surface of the wall of the pit. I carefully examined
the face of the pit, but could find no trace of any place where the
skull had lain, nor could any pottery or worked flints be dis-
covered in the cliff or in the loose debris.
The geological character of the earth in which the pit was
made is Glacial-drift, but whether any part of the upper surface
is Post-Glacial I am not qualified to determine. The beds are
composed of chalky gravel with patches or seams of coloured and
white water-washed sands and a small layer of water-worn chalk
nodules and some fossils and shells. I should say the beds are
false-bedded, the lines of bedding being much curved and
contorted, and towards the top or surface of the pit there are