Journal of Proceedings.
xxxix
Hangman's Wood were precisely those through which the Bexley holes
were sunk, and they had noticed in the first case that day, that, in con-
sequence of not having a sufficient thickness of chalk in the roof, a great
fall had taken place. In the second hole, where there was a thickness of
6 feet or more of chalk in the roof, no fall had taken place worth speaking
of, except in one corner. This proved the necessity for sinking the
chambers well into the chalk, a fact probably known to the men who
made them. If asked the purpose of the deep Dene-holes, like those
visited that day, he would say, as at present informed, that they were
intended as places of occasional refuge in times of danger, and as store-
houses.
Mr. Walker said that as he was coming down there he happened to
light on a neighbour of his who knew India and China exceedingly well.
He had told this gentleman the purpose of the excursion, and he said,
" I have been very much interested in seeing similar excavations in the
northern part of Asia and the Himalaya mountains. There the natives
choose similar places as store-houses for grain, and call them pootahs."
He had also seen the same thing in Delhi and in China, and the same
screen was always chosen—a wood. These places, which were obviously
old places of storage and retreat, belonged to a very unsettled state of
our country,—perhaps before the Saxon settlement, perhaps before the
Roman settlement,—evidently to a time when it was quite unsafe to
garner the produce of a field in the open field in the shape of ricks
accessible to incendiaries or to prowling bands. Supposing they belonged
to a certain early aboriginal state of society, he thought the fact his
friend Mr. Holmes had mentioned—that the deep Dene-holes were
almost invariably in a limestone formation—showed that people in
different parts of the world, and in the same stage of civilisation, adopted
the same means to preserve their goods. These were evidently pre-
historic, and belonged to an incipient stage of society. We had now a
means of establishing the date of archeological structures which we did
not possess before the discovery of stone implements, and a new interest
had been given to such remains; and though they had not had time that
day to make proper excavations, still he believed that they were Neolithic,
Neolithic implements having been found abundantly in the vicinity.
Mr. Worthington G. Smith said he felt bound to somewhat differ from
the two last speakers, for his impression was that the holes were excavated
chiefly as quarries for the flint with which to make stone implements, it
being a well-known fact that newly quarried flint is more tractable for manu-
facture than flint that has been exposed on the surface. He referred to
other pits, as those in Kent, at Brandon in Suffolk, Cissbury near
Worthing, Spiennes in Belgium, and other places, and said that the
excavations commonly ceased when a good floor of flint was reached, and
when one floor was exhausted another was dug for; that the excavated
flints had been found at the bottom ready to bring up, and implements in
every stage of manufacture at the top of the pits. He would not deny