Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/278

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK scooped out since the gravels were deposited on the top of the ridge. This valley ends in the wider valley of the River Lark, a river running from east to west ; a river now of small size, but whose valley at this point is about 2 miles wide. The Lark runs at right angles to the ridge and cuts right through it, so that the southern end of the ridge appears as a low escarpment bordering the Lark Valley. No one who stands on this escarp- ment and looks southward across the valley of the Lark can have any doubt that this valley has been formed since the gravels which cap the ridge were laid down ; and that the present river system of this part of Suffolk has little or nothing in common with that which obtained at the time the gravels were formed. To sum up the evidence brought forward up to this point ; we see that since the gravels were laid down in a river running from south to north, one side (the west) of the valley containing the river has entirely disappeared, being replaced by a flat plain at an average level of about 80 ft. below the level of the gravels ; whilst the other side (the east) has been cut out by water until the ancient river boundary is replaced by a valley averaging some 60 ft. below the level of the gravels and about a mile wide. As has been stated the ridge is capped by gravels for nearly its whole extent ; and in at least four different places these gravels have yielded humanly- worked implements. These four gravels are not, however, all at the same height above the Ordnance datum. Thus the upper surface of those situated at the south end of the ridge — known as the Warren Hill gravels — is about 70 ft. above the Ordnance datum, whereas the corresponding surface of the others lies at or above the hundred-foot level. And as they differ in height so do they differ in the character of the implements found in them. The four gravels referred to are known from south to north as: — (i) The Warren Hill gravels (just mentioned); {2) the High (or Warren) Lodge gravels; (3) the Portway Hill gravels ; (4) the Maid's Cross Hill (Lakenheath) gravels. The Warren Hill pits have produced the largest number of implements — certainly over a thousand ; the Maid's Cross Hill pits have been the next most prolific — probably some hundreds ; then the High Lodge gravels, the condi- tions of which are very peculiar and to which further reference will be made presently. The gravels at Portway Hill have not hitherto yielded many implements, and it is therefore difficult to speak very definitely about them. In comparing a large series of Warren Hill implements with a series from Maid's Cross Hill, the sharp distinction between them in type and appearance becomes at once evident. The striking characteristic of the series from Warren Hill is that the ovate implement, brought to a more or less sharp edge all round, shows marked predominance over other forms. At Maid's Cross Hill the pointed implement with a massive upper end is in equally marked predominance — a pointed implement of special type. Then again the predominant patina, or colour change due to age, of the Warren Hill implements is a peculiar spotted blue and yellow, very rarely met with elsewhere ; whilst that of the Maid's Cross Hill implements is a light yellow- ish white with perhaps bluish marbling. It is thus, in the case of the great majority of implements, perfectly easy to recognize at a glance from which of the gravels they have come. The implements from the High Lodge gravels, though more or less distinct in form and colour from those from Warren 238