12
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
On sorting the implements out according to their recorded
depths the result was impressive. With very few exceptions
those found at 2 feet and 3 feet from the surface were more
or less heavily patinated white on one surface ; those found at
6 to 9 feet were exclusively unpatinated ; while those found
between 3 and 6 feet were more mixed in patination. It does
not seem to me credible that the alleged depths at which the
flints were found would have shown so admirably the diminishing
effect downwards of the "weathering" action of percolating
water had they not been fairly reliable. So it seems to me that
we must have here, as I suggested, the debris of an important
living site, all washed up together at one time in a bank of
gravel and sand. The implements are quite unabraded, and have
never been rolled in a river-bed, or transported for any distance.
Colonel Underwood4, in his paper, divided the Dovercourt
industry into three periods, Chelles (now Acheulian I) S. Acheul
I. (now Acheulian II.) and S. Acheul II. (now Acheulian VII.
in this case). To me these differences are due to the accidental
variation in the flaking quality of the flint ; the whole group
was made by the same people at the same time. That is,
referring, as Colonel Underwood does, to the main group of
contemporary implements. There are a few rolled specimens
that may be derivatives from an earlier drift ; there are also a
few specimens that have evidently, from their condition, come
from above the gravel and that show High Lodge affinities.
Mr. Hinton5 records Rhinoceros megarhinus and a form re-
lated to Cervus dama, which he thinks is rather smaller than the
C. browni of Clacton. I obtained remains of a big ox, and also
of elephant with wide enamel plates that is probably E. antiquus,
but certainly not the mammoth. All these bones are frag-
mentary and mineralized, and probably derived from an earlier
deposit. Crag bone also occurs.
The most distinctive outline of the Dovercourt implements
is a somewhat cordate form, as seen in fig. 1, 4. The finish, that
is to say, the last flakes removed in making the implement,
instead of being a right-handed finish on both faces, as in the
"twisted-ovate" group (1, 5 and 2, 4), is most commonly an
equal right and left-handed finish, but on one face only. Some-
4 Proc. Pre. Soc. E. Anglia, vol. i., 1913, p. 363.
5 Proc. Preh. Soc. E. Anglia, vol. i., 1923, p. 367.