have been noted only in the southern end of the county and have a close relationship to the drift gravels of the Thames valley in which they have been discovered. The fact that at least some specimens have undergone drift-wear, indeed, suggests that, strictly speaking, they neither have now, nor ever had, any connection with the past history of the area we now know as Buckinghamshire, because drift-wear shows that they have travelled a considerable distance down the Thames valley since they were shaped by primitive man. Their place of origin as human tools or weapons may have been Oxfordshire, or even farther off.
In order to obtain a glimpse of Buckinghamshire in those far-off times it is necessary to consider the river-drift deposits of the Thames valley as a whole. This is the more desirable because the palæolithic age is separated from our own times by a long period of time and great physical changes, with the natural result that scarcely anything in the form of archæological relics less hard than stone has survived. Founded on the evidence of the bruised, battered, and worn flint implements, our ideas of the condition of man in palæolithic times are far from extensive and far from satisfactory. Still, as far as they go, they are perhaps more precise than one might imagine who had not studied the subject.
The Thames valley contains a number of beds of drift-gravel among which a large total number of palæolithic tools and weapons have been found. It has already been mentioned that some of these have been much worn and have obviously been transported to considerable distances. Others, particularly those found in sand or brick-earth, show no sign of drift-wear. In other parts of the Thames valley it is clear that the manufacture of palæolithic implements was carried on close by the river-side. Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell found the site of a regular implement factory at Crayford, Kent; Mr. J. Allen Brown found another at Acton, Middlesex; and still another has been found by Mr. W. G. Smith, at Caddington, in Bedfordshire. In all these cases it has been found possible to replace the flakes, as they were struck off by palæolithic man, so as to build up the nodule of flint practically to its original form.
One of the features of the occurrence of palæolithic implements in the Thames valley, and in other valleys, is the comparative abundance of implements, flakes, etc., at one spot and the rarity or entire absence of them at many other parts of the valley. It is possible, or even probable, that the physical forces which are responsible for the presence and arrangement of drift-gravel in a river valley may have had an intimate relation to the diffusion of implements, but it is impossible to avoid the inference that the population of the country in the palæolithic age was sparse, partial, and chiefly confined to the banks or immediate neighbourhood of rivers. In palæolithic times, however, it must be remembered that the River Thames was a very much larger body of water than at present, and adequately filled up its valley.
The actual remains of the palæolithic age found in Buckinghamshire comprise flakes and implements or weapons formed of flint of the usual character and types of river-drift implements. These have been dis-
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