On Deneholes.
49
in attracting population in the Stone periods analogous to
that of coal in this present iron age.
A brief account of the leading characteristics of the ancient
flint-workings at Brandon and Cissbury will show in what
respects they resemble and in what they differ from the pits
visited by the Essex Field Club at Hangman's Wood, and
those which are so numerous south of the Thames in the
neighbourhood of Bexley.
The assemblage of pits known as Grimes Graves is about
three miles N.E. of Brandon, a town close to the borders of
Norfolk and Suffolk. Canon Greenwell states3 that the pits
are about 254 in number, and generally about twenty-five
feet apart. They are circular, vary in diameter from twenty
to sixty-five feet, and have all been filled up to within four
feet of the surface; the older pits having received the material
brought up out of the newer ones. That examined by Canon
Greenwell was twenty-eight feet in diameter at the top and
twelve feet at the bottom, which was thirty-nine feet below
the surface. The shaft was sunk through thirteen feet of
dark yellow sand, which formed the surface, and below that
was in chalk. The depth of the pit was determined by the
presence, at thirty-nine feet, of a stratum of flint much
better suited for implements than those above. The flint
forming the floor of the shaft having been removed, galleries
were driven in various directions to enable the workmen to
extract more flint. These galleries averaged about three feet
in height and from four to seven feet in width, and all the
shafts were connected together by means of them. Numerous
picks made from the antlers of Bed Deer were found in the
galleries.
At Cissbury the chalk is covered by but a few inches of
soil. The shafts, though variable in size, resembled in
character those of Grimes Graves, and were connected
together by a network of similar galleries. Horn picks were
3 Journ. Ethn. Soc, Jan., 1871. The pits are in the three-cornered
. wood half a mile N.E. of the Avoids "Grimes Grayes" on the Ord. Map
(one inch). That examined by Canon Greenwell is still about twenty
feet deep.
E