15
PALAEOLITHIC REMAINS FROM CLACTON-
ON-SEA, ESSEX
By S HAZZLEDINE WARREN, F.G.S.
[Read 28th April 1911].
PALEOLITHIC Flint-flakes from the Pleistocene fresh-
water deposit of Clacton-on-Sea have been known for
many years. The most abundant mammalian remains in the
deposit are Elephas antiquus, Rhincoceros leptorhinus, Bos
primigenius, and Cervus browni, although numerous other species
also occur. The mammoth is absent. For assistance in the
determination of these remains, I am indebted to Mr. E.T. Newton,
F.R.S., and Dr. A. Smith Woodward; the earlier list given by
Dr. Boyd Dawkins, the collection in the Natural History Museum,
and that of Mr. H. Picton, of Clacton, have also been consulted.
Last Easter I found in this deposit a beautifully pointed
shaft of wood, which from its size and form is probably the
point of a wooden spear.1 As this object is probably unique, I
have made plaster casts for distribution. To accompany these, I
have also made casts of some of the characteristic flint imple-
ments from the same deposit. Not a single example of the
usual ovate or pointed Palaeolithic types has yet been found,
either by myself, or by other workers, so far as I am aware.
In addition to simple, untrimmed flakes, a certain number of
scrapers and pseudo-Mousterien forms of trimmed flakes are
found. The only forms of implements, other than these, made
from flakes, are rude forms of side-choppers, or ''hand-axes."
The flint industry does not show the true Mousterien technique
and certainly cannot be considered as a series of that date.
Strangely enough, the most nearly similar series is found in the
ruder surface implements of the Chalk Downs of the South of
England, rather than in any Palaeolithic group. The flakes
are perhaps more distinctly Palaeolithic in technique than the
implements.
The implements from this deposit not infrequently have
calcareous incrustation upon their surfaces. There is a good
deal of this on the scraper, a cast of which accompanies the
spear; it is represented by suggestive colouring in the cast.
[Mr. Warren has kindly presented a set of the models of the
flakes and implement to our Museum.—Ed.]
1 Quart. Journ., Geol. Soc., vol. lxvii., 1911. Proceedings, page cxix.