PREHISTORIC MAN
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spear-heads, bronze arrow-heads, a bronze knife ;
an iron sword (late Celtic), part of the bronze
sheath of a (late Celtic) dagger ; a pierced axe-head
of stag's horn ; a bone knife; a stag's horn club;
some Celtic earthen pots, and a Kimmeridge coal
or jet armlet.
Such is the record which " the ground beneath
us" yields to our investigations. We see por-
trayed the ancient forest extending over the whole
country in an almost unbroken tract from the
walls of British and Romano-British London, far
to the north and over all East Anglia. The glades
are tenanted by herds of deer and wild cattle ; the
woods and marshy ground are the home of the wild-
boar ; the secret places of the forest, the retreat
of wolves; the rivers are tenanted by the beaver,
whose dams resulted in the flooding and destruction
of many a forest tract, by blocking up and divert-
ing the natural water-courses of the Lea and the
Roding. In evidence of this we see the peat beds
full of timber, some of which was no doubt cut
down by this ancient forester, who left his own
remains also behind to " ear-mark " his work.
The primitive natives had little acquaintance
with iron and bronze, and made their weapons of
the chase of stone, bone, and horn. But when in-
vaded by their warlike foes, the wild but well-armed
Northmen and Vikings (who raided the coast and
ascended the rivers in search of native villages
which they might plunder and from which they
might carry off the weaker inhabitants for slaves),
these marauders occasionally left a sunk or stranded
vessel behind, and some of their dead comrades
together with their bronze or iron weapons to fur-
nish us with a record of their unwelcome visits.
So also do the marvellous " Deneholes" in the
chalk at Grays—doubtless used by the natives in
prehistoric times as places of retreat for their
women and children, and for the storage of their
grain and household gear in times of invasion
or of local warfare.
At a still earlier period man was represented
merely by small scattered tribes, or families of