THE ELEPHANT-BED OF CLACTON-ON-SEA.
39
Let us place the following groups as an ascending series :—
1. The Clacton Mesvinian, of Lower Acheulean date.
2. The Proto-Mousterian Tortoise-Core industry, like that
of Grays and Northfleet, of Upper Acheulean date.
3. The Mousterian industry proper.
It would require rather elaborate illustration to adequately
present the case, but as one glances over the succession of types
in that order of ascertained relative date, our difficulties with
the affinity of the Clacton industry at least appear to vanish.
Whether actually right or not, it is at least certain that nothing
could well make a more reasonable evolutionary sequence, or
development of flint industry, than these three groups. We are
still left, however, with the Clacton industry in the air at the
other end, that is to say, without a predecessor. On that point
one must wait for more light.
Side by side with that sequence that we have inferred (whether
rightly or wrongly), one may point out that Mousterian man
himself was of the Neanderthal race, and many anatomists are
of opinion that this race of men was an independent and more
primitive offshoot of the human family than the Chellean and
Acheulean peoples. Thus, the independent study of the race
type, and of the flint industry, both point to a similar conclusion.
There is nothing inherently improbable in the existence of
a more primitive race of Mesvinians living contemporaneously
with the more advanced Acheuleans. It is only the same
condition of things that we find all over the world to-day.
Unfortunately, no human skull has ever been found in the
Clacton bed ; it is a likely place, but Palaeolithic Yoricks are
always very shy.
Lastly, there is one other unique item which I had the great
good fortune to find in the Clacton bed, namely, the broken point
of a very well made, and slenderly pointed, wooden spear. This
has been previously recorded in our journal, and described else-
where,6 and there is a cast of it in our Museum at Stratford.
6 For this, and also the flint industry, vide Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia, vol. iii., 1922, p.
507. The spear-point is illustrated by O. G. S. Crawford In Man and His Past. 1921. See also
Essex Naturalist, vol. xvii., 1914, p. 15.