CORRELATION OF THE PREHISTORIC "FLOOR." 269
G. Mumford in 1831, of a flint axe found buried to a
depth of 11/2 inches from its cutting edge, in one of the
trunks of the trees in the submerged forest near Hunstanton,
in Norfolk.19 As possibly belonging to the same horizon, a
chipped flint axe with a ground edge was found embedded in
the frontal bone of the skull of Bos primigenius at the bottom
of the peat in Burwell Fenn, Cambridgeshire. Nearly the
whole skeleton of the animal, which was a fine example of its
species, was found, and it had clearly been killed by the axe,
which had penetrated the brain. The flint axe was itself broken
across, a little way from where it would have entered the handle,
probably by the force of the blow.20
As is well known to all collectors of prehistoric remains,
large numbers of stone implements have been dredged from the
bed of the Thames.21 These may possibly have come from
some buried surface, but so far as I am aware, they have never
been traced to their source.
Discoveries having an important bearing upon a problem
presently to be considered, namely the age of the Buried Pre-
historic surface, have likewise been made in Torbay. Here
Mr. D. Pidgeon has found, upon the former surface beneath
the peat, the sites of several hearths, associated with flint
implements, primitive pottery, granite grinding stones about
ten inches in diameter, ingots of copper, and material which,
upon analysis, proved to be tin slag.22
This evidence of primitive bronze smelting accords well
with the fragments of "Beaker" or "Drinking Cup" pottery
from Eastern Essex. It also accords with the general types of
the stone implements of the Later Series of East Essex, with
the perforated stone hammer from the Southampton Docks,
with the chert knife from Torbay, which is preserved in the
Museum at Torquay, and with other finds in the ancient buried
surface. All these are such as are found associated with early
bronze. This is a subject to which we shall return in the sequel,
when considering the problem of the age of the Buried Prehistoric
Surface.
19 Gunn, Geology of Norfolk (1883), p. 22. See also W. Whittaker and A. J. Jukes-
Browne, Geology of the Borders of the Walh, Mem. Geol. Survey 1899, p. 101.
20 J. Carter, Geol. Mag. (1874), p. 492.
21 F. C J. Spurrell, Proc. Geo., Assoc. vol. xi. (1889), p. 210.
22 D. Pidgeon, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xli. (1885), p. 9.