Evidence of the Presence of Man.
Fig. 27.—Flint flake, Lower Brick-earths, Erith, 11.
Man is proved to have belonged to this fauna by the discovery, in 1872, in my presence, of a flint flake in the lower brick-earths at Crayford, by the Rev. Osmond Fisher.[1] It was in situ in No. 2 of Fig. 31, in the same stratum of gravel in which I discovered the skull of the musk-bull in 1866, now preserved in the Museum of the Geological Survey. Subsequently, in 1876, a second implement[2] was found in the same series of beds at Erith, also in situ, at a point about two inches above the shell-band in the pits. It is a roughly-chipped flake, considerably worn by use (Fig. 27). It may be remarked that this form of cutting implement, so abundant, as we shall see, in the late Pleistocene age, was used also in the Neolithic and Bronze ages, ultimately being employed within the Historic period by the Egyptians and by the Romanised Britons of Sussex and Kent, in whose tombs it was placed from
