EARLY MAN
THAT part of the history of man which is antecedent to the era of written records, and which therefore may be called in the broadest sense prehistoric, is well represented in Berkshire both by objects which have been found on or in superficial deposits, and by certain other remains which will be fully described hereafter.
The prehistoric period falls into certain well-recognized divisions, characterized either by the material out of which Early Man's cutting tools and weapons were fabricated, or by his mode of shaping such tools, these differences indicating progressive stages of culture. Pursuing the general plan adopted in this series, an account will be given of the various discoveries, arranged under the respective periods to which they belong, followed by a topographical list showing in concise form the precise locality and nature of each discovery.
The Palæolithic Age
The earliest clear and unequivocal traces of man in Berkshire consist chiefly of stone implements or weapons which are found in the old gravel-deposits of Pleistocene age which lie on the slopes of the valleys at some considerable elevation roughly 50 to 120 feet above the present level of the rivers. The absolute ignorance of metals which these remains indicate accords well with the geological age of the deposits in which they are found. At the same time the extraordinary skill shown in working these tools, and the persistence of well-recognized types over wide areas, indicate that man had made considerable progress even in these early times.
Attention was first drawn to the existence of palæolithic implements in Berkshire by Dr. Joseph Stevens,[1] who described certain specimens found by him in a gravel-pit in Tilehurst Road, Reading, near Grovelands Farm, and referred to as the Grovelands pit. He also found implements at Caversham on the other side of the Thames, some fine specimens of which are in the Reading Museum. At an earlier date the writer had found an implement in gravel from a pit on the Redlands estate, Reading.[2] Since then a very considerable number of implements of various kinds, as well as flakes or chips struck off in the process of manufacture, have been found at various places in the valley-systems of Berkshire, but especially in the main valley
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