Prehistoric Britain/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE TRANSITION FROM PALÆOLITHIC TO NEOLITHIC CIVILIZATION—THE HIATUS PROBLEM AND LAND SUBMERGENCE
In the last chapter we had a passing glimpse of the Palæolithic races of Western Europe—their physical attributes, social industries and artistic attainments—as disclosed by their tools, weapons, ornaments and works of art. In moving down the stream of time, still keeping as far as possible within the same geographical area, we find the land inhabited by other races whose social organizations and general methods of living appear to have been totally different from those of the former. Here we pause for a little, in order to take a preliminary glance at the characteristic features and landmarks of their civilization. The stage in European history we are thus called upon to inspect is known by the name Neolithic Age, so-called because a new and improved mechanical principle then came into general use, viz. the art of polishing stone implements by rubbing them with some hard material, so as to give them a sharper cutting edge than was possible by the old process of chipping. How far we have travelled in time to reach this phase of culture we cannot say in so many years, or centuries, or even millenniums.
In our survey of the geography of Western Europe during the Palæolithic period, Britain was part of the European continent whose westward sea-board extended far into the Atlantic Ocean. The beds of the larger portion of the German Ocean, the English Channel and the Irish Sea were raised above the level of the Atlantic and formed the happy hunting- ground of our early forefathers. But from the earliest dawn of Neolithic times nearly the whole of these extensive plains and river valleys were transformed into great inland seas. Nothing was to be seen of their former condition but the roots of a few submerged forests cropping up here and there, at low-water mark. The last of the extinct mammals had already died out or disappeared from the British area, with the exception of a few stray specimens of the Irish elk, the reindeer and the wild bull (Bos primigenius), which lingered in a few isolated localities down to proto-historic times. In short, the fauna and flora characteristic of sub-Arctic regions had given place to those of a temperate climate. But the most astounding change in regard to animal life was the domestication of a number of animals (dog, ox, horse, pig, sheep and goat), some of which were reared as pets, others for food, and others for their milk. Another innovation of far-reaching consequence to humanity appeared to have been practised at a very early date, viz. the cultivation of a number of cereals (wheat, barley and millet), fruits and a few plants. In addition to such changes in the physical environment, these Neolithic folk were in possession of equally novel methods in their domestic economy. They were skilled in the ceramic art, and in the manufacture of cloth by spinning and weaving wool and fibrous textures. In hunting the forest fauna they used, in addition to spears, lances and daggers, the bow and arrow. They built houses both for the dead and the living—thus showing that religion had become a governing principle in their social economy. But of the artistic taste of their Palæolithic predecessors they possessed not a vestige, and whatever they did by way of ornament consisted of a few incised scratches arranged in simple geometrical patterns.
It is quite evident that such radical changes, embracing nearly all departments of social life, were not adopted en bloc, nor in a short space of time. Alterations in the relative level of sea and land, on so large a scale as the submergence of half a continent, are generally the result of slow cosmical processes. The same may be said of climate, floras and faunas. The inventive skill that leads to mechanical improvements in social industries, and the rise of pastoral and agricultural occupations, are essentially the outcome of long experience under the unprogressive influences inherent in mankind. In fact, the fundamental principles of the two civilizations are so divergent that the Neolithic can hardly be regarded as a local development of that of the Palæolithic period. It was the striking difference between the practical elements of the two civilizations that gave rise to the theory that after the close of the Palæolithic period there was a break, or hiatus, in the continuity of human existence in Western Europe. Hence arose an animated controversy which divided archæologists into two opposing camps—one contending that the Quaternary population followed the retreating ice and its associated fauna northwards, leaving behind them a desert land; the other maintaining that they became amalgamated with new races from Eastern lands, and that their blood still permeates the veins of the modern inhabitants of Europe. In earlier days the former doctrine was advocated by some of the foremost authorities, such as Ed. Lartet, G. de Mortillet and others, but it is now largely discarded. On the other hand, Paul Broca and a few other distinguished archæologists maintained from the very outset that the flint tools of the later Palæolithic stations and those of Neolithic times were not so dissimilar as to justify the idea that there had been any break in the continuity of the flint industry in Europe. And further, that there was valid evidence to show that the extremely dolichocephalic skulls found in the sepulchral caverns of the Lozère (Baumes-Chaudes, L'Homme-Mort, etc.), were those of the descendants of the cavemen.
At the meeting of the Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology held at Stockholm in 1874, M. Cazalis de Fondouce reviewed the Hiatus theory in all its aspects, in a masterly paper, in which he combated it on every point. His general conclusions were that the transition from the one civilization to the other was slow, but without interruption since the commencement of the Palæolithic period down to the present day; that towards the close of that period two or more different races had combined and developed the primary elements of Neolithic civilization; that the ameliorated climate attracted, from time to time, new immigrants who imported improved elements into the arts and industries; and lastly, that the incoming tribes gradually absorbed the indigenous people of the old Stone Age, thus accounting for the persistence of the marked ethnic peculiarities of the Palæolithic races still to be traced in the populations of Europe.
If the opinion of M. de Fondouce with regard to the ultimate fate of the Palæolithic folk be correct, as I believe it is, there must have been a transition period of considerable duration, during which the characteristic features of the full-blown Neolithic culture can be shown to have been acquired by slow degrees. Stations, such as caves and rock-shelters, shell-heaps, huts, camps and various sedimentary deposits, yielding relics which prove continuous habitation from Palæolithic to Neolithic times, have been discovered within recent years in many localities throughout Central and Western Europe.
A rambling discussion over such a wide field of research as the transition period is manifestly beyond the limits of this book, but the subject is too important to be altogether ignored. The best way of bringing the gist of the subject before readers is to give a brief account of the arguments derived from one or two characteristic sites.
The late Edward Piette was one of the most strenuous advocates of the existence of a transition period, evidence of which he had obtained in several caves and rock-shelters situated among the rocky regions to the north of the Pyrenees, the most important of which is the cavern of Mas-d'Azil (Ariège). This is a vast subterranean gallery, about 400 metres in length, at the bottom of which foams the turbulent waters of the Arise. During the construction of a road along the stream the relic-bearing deposits, on which M. Piette founds his arguments, were discovered. A résumé of his researches on this site was brought before the Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology held in Paris in 1889, with the result that there was a consensus of opinion among the members that his discoveries proved that the interval between the two civilizations, in that locality, had been of short duration. The precise data are as follows:
Above a stratum containing relics characteristic of the Reindeer Age, but beneath deposits with relics equally characteristic of the Neolithic period, Piette describes two beds, the combined depth of which amounted to four feet, which yielded the relics supposed to indicate a transition period. The lower of these two beds was composed chiefly of ashes and wood-charcoal intermingled with some fallen rocks. The thickness of this bed was 2512 inches, and among its contents the following worked objects were found: flint knives and scrapers, a number of perforated deer teeth, arranged as if they had formed a necklet, also perforated teeth of various other animals; pins, polished pointers, and spatulæ of bone; barbed harpoons made of stag-horn, some being perforated at the butt-end with an oval or round hole, and others with barbs on one side only; also a large number of pebbles of quartz or schist—such as could be picked from the bed of the river—some "round-nosed" and pestle-shaped, showing usage markings at one end, and others, flat and oblong, having various devices painted on them with peroxide of iron (Fig. 19). The fauna was represented by bones of the stag, roebuck, chamois, ox, horse, common bear, wild-boar, badger, wolf, beaver, rat, and some birds and fishes. Grains of wheat and a variety of fruit-stones and seeds were also identified. The larger bones of two human skeletons, which appeared to have
Fig. 19.—Mas-d'Azil. Harpoons of stag-horn (1, 2, 3);objects of bone (7, 8, 9, 10); round-nosed pebble worked at one end (4); flint object (6); horn worked at one end(5); tooth of a bear (11). (All 12). (After Piette.)
been buried after the flesh had been removed, had also been marked with red patches of peroxide of iron. Super-imposed on this bed, but passing into it almost insensibly, were deposits of wood ashes 2312 inches thick, streaked with bands of grey, white and red. in which were embedded quantities of land shells (Helix nemoralis), evidently the remains of repasts. These shell-heaps were intercalated between the layers of ashes, and extended over several yards, with a maximum depth of about one foot. In this bed were also found harpoons and other relics similar to those in the bed of coloured pebbles; but in addition to these there were portions of small chisel-like implements of stone with sloping and abraded ends (Fig. 19, No. 6), but no regular stone axes. Only in the super- incumbent layers were the latter found, where, still higher up, came objects of bronze and iron.
According to M. Piette there were changes in the external environment which could be correlated with these successive deposits of human occupancy. As the Reindeer period passed away, the climate became ameliorated but humid, as inferred from the presence of fruit-trees and the cultivation of grain. The people appeared to have lost their artistic taste for carving on bones, as they now manufactured harpoons of red-deer horn without a trace of ornament. They also painted selected pebbles with quaint devices of lines and round spots, and practised some obscure sepulchral rites in which the spreading of ochre on the desiccated bones seemed to play a part.
But the chief interest in the discoveries at Mas-d'Azil lies in the harpoons of red-deer horn, the real significance of which had then for the first time been recognized, although a few specimens had already been found in other stations. Since attention has been directed to them they have been discovered in considerable numbers in various and widely separated localities, and are regarded as typical relics of the transition period.
Among other cave-dwellings which have yielded flat harpoons made of red-deer horn one of the most interesting is the Grotte de Reilhac (Lot), described by MM. Cartailhac and Boule in 1889. On Fig. 20 are shown four worked objects from this station, viz. portion of a harpoon typical of the Magdalénien epoch (4), two harpoons of the Azilian type (5, 6), and a deer-horn holder for a stone axe so commonly met with among lake-dwelling relics (7). The presence of these relics, so characteristic of the successive cultural stages, conclusively proves that the Grotte de Reilhac was inhabited from the Reindeer period down to Neolithic times.
In face of these and other rapidly accumulating facts, proving the existence of deposits of human débris containing relics stratigraphically proved to be later than those of the Reindeer period, but older than those of the polished stone age, Mortillet abandoned the Hiatus theory and filled up the gap by adding a new epoch to his previous classification, which he called Tourassien, after the Grotte de la Tourasse (Haute-Garonne). This station yielded, along with a few other bone relics of intermediary forms, no less than a dozen harpoons of the kind now under review. Here the reindeer was almost entirely supplanted by the red-deer, as it contained only two teeth of the former, whereas those of the latter amounted to 500. The deposits in which they were found lay beneath a series of Neolithic burials.
Fig. 20.—Harpoons, etc., from various localities. No. 1. Victoria Cave; (2) the bed of the Dee (Kirkcudbright); (3) near Newcastle; (4-7) Grotte de Reilhac (France); (8) Swiss Lake-dwelling (Collection Gross); (9) Laugerie Basse. (All 12, except 4 and 7 = 38.)
It may be observed that the flatness which is characteristic of these harpoons is due to the fact that the texture of red-deer horn is spongy in the interior, and consequently it is only the outside of the horn that can be used in their manufacture. On the other hand, the harpoons of the Palæolithic period have round stems and conical butts, with two projecting knobs close to the butt-end for keeping the string from falling away when the harpoon becomes detached from the handle.
Similar evidence is derived from a study of the post-glacial deposits of the rock-shelter of the Schweizersbild, which have yielded to Dr. Nüesch not only relics of the hunters who frequented this shelter, but remains of the animals on which they feasted, in sufficient abundance to enable experts to make out a complete list of the ordinary fauna of the period. It has been shown that, during the occupancy of this rock-shelter by man, there had been a gradual transition from an Arctic to a temperate climate. The contents of these deposits indicate that the locality had been a constant rendezvous for bands of roving hunters from the Palæolithic period down to the Bronze Age.
Among inhabited sites which fall into the category of transition stations are the famous Kjøkkenmøddings of Denmark, and the recently discovered lacustrine settlement in the peat-bog of Maglemose (formerly the bed of a lake) in the island of Zeeland. The industrial remains on both these stations consist of objects made of flint and horn, but no polished ones (Fig. 21). Among the flint implements there is one of a special type which is regarded as characteristic of the period, viz. the tranchet (No. 1), a kind of hatchet having the cutting edge on one side formed by a large facet. No. 3 is a fragment of an Azilian harpoon, and Nos. 4 and 5 are bone combs. Except the dog, none of the ordinary domestic animals has been found on these stations, nor any of the cultivated cereals.
Fig. 21.—Objects from Danish Kjøkkenmøddings (1, 3–5), and Hut-dwelling of Campigny (2). (All 12.)
The tranchet is also the most characteristic implement in the hut settlement of Campigny (Seine-Inférieure) (No. 2). A workshop for the manufacture of this implement has been described at Coudraie, near Montevilliers (Seine- Inférieure). According to M. Salmon (dict. des Sc. Anth., p. 807) the tranchet is to be found in great numbers in the plateau stations of the departments of the Aube, Calvados, Nièvre, Oise, Saône-et-Loire, Yonne and others. The industrial remains of these stations scarcely advanced to the degree of using the polished stone axes, which are sparingly met with.
Of the less known of the early haunts of man during the transition period, one of the most instructive is a series of shell-mounds, discovered in 1863, in the valley of the Tagus, near the villages of Salvaterra and Mugem. The mounds are grouped on the left bank of the Tagus at from twenty-five to thirty metres above sea-level, and distant some thirty miles from the maritime shores of the present embouchure of the river. The shells are of marine origin, and when they were gathered and used as food, it is supposed that the sea extended up the valley as far as the shell-mounds which suggests that the land must have since risen considerably. The industrial remains disclosed by excavations are of a very rude character, consisting of primitive implements made of flint, quartzite, bone and horn. Among the flints are a few knife flakes, and some small cutting implements of rhomboidal forms. There are also some large flat stones, used for grinding purposes, together with the small hand rubbers. Horn and bone were utilized as chisels, pointers, spatulæ, etc. No polished axes, nor pottery, nor any indications of domestic animals have been found in these Portuguese settlements.
The most interesting feature of the investigations was the discovery of upwards of a hundred interments at various depths in the shell-mounds; but it does not appear that any grave-goods had been associated with the bodies. The osseous remains were much decayed and the skulls distorted, probably by the pressure of the débris. Enough, however, remained to show that they represented two races—one dolichocephalic and the other brachycephalic. Of the latter only two specimens were in the series (the cephalic index of one being 86–90), while all the others were dolichocephalic, with cephalic indices of 71⋅11 to 75⋅56. A reasonable inference from these archæological data is that the constructors of the shell-mounds were a mixed community, the great majority of which belonged to the old Palæolithic people of Europe; while the minority formed part of the advanced immigrants of the Neolithic races into Europe.
Turning now to Britain, we shall see there is also within its borders similar evidence of a transition period during which it was inhabited by a primitive population who may have been descendants of its original Palæolithic people.
The MacArthur cave was discovered in 1894 by quarrymen while removing stones for building purposes from a cliff facing the bay of Oban, and long regarded as marking the line of an old sea-beach. The contents of the cave consisted (1) of a superficial layer of black earth in which human remains were found, including two dolichocephalic skulls, thus indicating that the final purpose of the cave was a burial-place; and (2) a food refuse-heap comprised of shells of various kinds and the remains of animals, partly superimposed on, and partly intercalated with, sea gravel. It would appear that during a storm, subsequent to the time when the cave had become a place of resort to man, the waves were forced into the cave, carrying with them a certain amount of shingle, which, after the abatement of the storm, had become the habitable floor of the cave, and over which the cave-dwellers again took up their abode.
If this deduction be correct, the importance of the Oban discovery cannot be over-rated, as it proves that man was an inhabitant of the district when the entrance to the cave was on the sea-beach, and sufficiently near the water to permit of the waves to enter it during a storm. The beach of to-day is, however, a hundred yards distant, and the lower shell-bed lay fully thirty feet above present high-water mark; so that a change in the relative level of Sea and land must have taken place in that part of Scotland to the extent of some twenty-five or thirty feet, since the troglodyte hunters of Oban feasted on the marine and land animals of the district. These it may be observed were unquestionably Neolithic in character.
All the implements recovered from the débris in the cave were made of bone or deer-horn, with the exception of three hammer-stones and twenty flints, mostly flakes and chips. The bone and horn implements were as follows: three pins, three borers, and a few bone implements of a nondescript character, being merely pointed or flattened at one end;
Fig. 22.—Skull and Relics from the MacArthur Cave, Oban. (All 12, except 6, 8 and 9 = 38, and skull greatly reduced.)
one hundred and forty "round-nosed," chisel-ended implements, having an extraordinary likeness to each other; and seven harpoons (two being entire) made of deer-horn (Fig. 22). The larger of the entire harpoons is six inches long, has four barbs on each side, and an oval perforation at the butt-end. The other differs from the former only in being smaller and having no perforation. A mere glance at these bone implements, especially the harpoons, shows their striking similarity to those from Mas-d'Azil and other Azilian stations on the Continent. No archæologist can fail to be astonished at so remarkable a coincidence as that a group of human relics, from such widely distant localities as Oban and France, should be so similar. The harpoons agree not only in the material of which they were made, but also in the shape of the stem, the method of cutting the barbs, and the occasional presence of an aperture on the butt-end.
Similar remains, including a few harpoons, were subsequently found in a shelter situated at the base of a steep rock called Druimvargie, overlooking a marsh in which, some years ago, the remains of a supposed lake-dwelling were dug up. As the lowest portion of this marsh is only a few feet above high-water mark, it would have been an inland bay when the sea stood so high as to wash the entrance to the MacArthur cave, so that the two stations would then have been on opposite sides of a small bay, probably frequented by the same body of hunters. Fig. 23 shows a selection of the worked objects found at Druimvargie from which their similarity to those from the MacArthur cave will be at once seen.
Another locality which has yielded the same class of industrial remains is a shell-heap called Caisteal-nan-Gillean in the island of Oronsay. The shell-heap formed an isolated mound between a range of sand-dunes and the sea, measuring about 150 feet in diameter and on an average 25 feet in height. Its surface was covered with grassy turf, having blown sand underneath to a depth of one to five feet. Below this covering was an accumulation of shells and bones, mingled with sand and ashes for a depth of about eight feet. Underneath this refuse-heap the substance of the mound was composed of a series of layers of blown sand and a dark mould, with a few sea and land shells, but no implements.
Fig. 23.—Portions of harpoons and round-nosed chisels of bone and horn from the Rock-shelter of Druimvargie. (All 12)
The implements of bone and horn found in Caisteal-nan-Gillean consisted of eleven harpoons, three awls and 150 "round-nosed" chisels, similar to those of the Oban cave. The stone implements, numbering over 200, were elongated water-worn pebbles, worked at one end and supposed to have been used as limpet-hammers (Fig. 24).
Fig. 24.—Caisteal-nan-Gillean Shell-Heap, Oronsay. Harpoons and objects of bone, horn and stone. (All 12.)
Besides the above-named objects there were eight fragments of perforated implement made of deer-horn, and others roughly cut round the circumference and then broken across; also two small anvils and some flint chips, but none that could be called an implement. With the exception of bones of the greak auk, the organic remains were those of the existing fauna of the west coast, among which were red-deer, otter, wild-boar, marten, grey and common seal, cetaceas, limpet, pecten, oyster, cockle, crab—all evidently used for edible purposes.
Two other shell-heaps on the island of Oronsay have yielded relics and organic remains precisely similar to those of Caisteal-nan-Gillean, one called Croch Sligach (shelly mound), and the other Croch Riach (grey mound).
These remarkable discoveries in the caves of Oban and shell-mounds of Oronsay were first described by Dr. Joseph Anderson and published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vols. XXIX and XXXII).
The Oronsay shell-mounds were explored by Mr. William Galloway some time before 1884, but the results were not published till Mr. Galloway's collection had been acquired by the Scottish National Museum of Antiquities, and thus came under the notice of Dr. Anderson.
Implements of bone and deer-horn of the blunt, chisel-ended type were found in a shell-heap on Inchkeith, and there can be no doubt that a careful search would result in the discovery of other primitive inhabited sites in North Britain yielding remains of the transition period. In Prehistoric Remains in Caithness, published in 1886 (Williams and Norgate), Mr. Samuel Laing, joint author with Professor Huxley, describes a number of shell-heaps which he assigned to "the earliest race of human inhabitants of Britain," and regarded their relics and associated fauna as contemporary with the Kjøkkenmøddings of Denmark.
Stray examples of the characteristic harpoons of Oban and Mas-d'Azil have also been discovered in several other localities in North Britain. One was found in the bed of the Dee, near Kirkcudbright (Fig. 20, No. 2); another in the Victoria cave, near Settle (No. 1); and a third in the vicinity of Newcastle, now preserved in the Archæological Museum of that town (No. 3). Specimens have also been recorded from some of the earlier Swiss lake- dwellings (No. 8) and turbaries (peat-dogs) of North Italy. Number 9 on the same figure is from Laugerie Basse (Dordogne).
Nor is the above the only line of evidence to show that Scotland was inhabited by a race of primitive people who manufactured implements of deer-horn, and lived on shell-fish and such marine animals as chance or strategy brought within their reach, prior to the last land elevation of the country. Implements of deer-horn associated with the skeletons of stranded whales have been found in various parts of the valley of the Forth, localities which at the present time are the most highly cultivated in Scotland. One such implement (Fig. 25), unique of its kind, is preserved in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh. It was described by Sir W. Turner in 1889, at a meeting of the British Association then held at Newcastle-on-Tyne. It is made of a piece of stag-horn, 11 inches long and 612 inches in its greatest girth; truncated at one end and bevelled into a cutting edge at the other, with a perforation not in the middle but a couple of inches nearer the truncated end. It was discovered in 1877, resting on the skull of a Balænoptera whale, in the course of drainage operations on the estate of Meiklewood, a few miles west of Stirling, and when exposed there was a portion of a wooden handle still in the hole. Shell-heaps have been noted along the ancient but now vanished shores of this valley.
Fig. 25.—Perforated implement of stag-horn found associated with the skeleton of a whale in the Casse of Stirling. (11 inches in length.)
But here a new problem crops up. We have already seen that Palæolithic races inhabited the south of England up to the Magdalénien epoch, but apparently there is no evidence to show that their descendants continued to live in these regions up to early Neolithic times. No stranded whales associated with deer-horn axes, no shell-middens, or raised beaches with Azilian harpoons, such as we have described in Scotland, are to be found in South Britain. As a solution of this problem I have elsewhere advanced the hypothesis (Arch. Journal, Vol. LV, pp. 259–85) that nearly all the evidence on this point is now practically obliterated by a submergence of the land of South Britain and the opposite coast of Brittany.
But this submergence ought not to be confounded with the extensive subsidence which commenced during the glacial epoch and embraced the whole of Western Europe. That with which we have now to deal was comparatively recent, and probably contemporary with the opposite movement which caused the last raised beaches in Scotland. It was a wave-like undulation which upheaved the north and depressed the south of Britain. At any rate there can be no doubt that a submergence of the land has taken place in the south of England since man inhabited it in proto-Neolithic times. The evidence in support of this statement consists of submerged forests and old inhabited land-surfaces, associated with edible shells, and bones of the stag, hog, horse and Bos longifrons, together with rude implements of horn and flint, which are occasionally to be seen at low-water mark in many localities. Such remains have been incidentally described on the coast of Somerset, at Barnstaple in North Devon, at Torbay, St. Bride's Bay, the coasts of Cheshire, Lancashire and Hampshire, the valley of the Thames, and along the shores of Essex and east coast as far north as Holderness. Many of these vanishing landmarks on the eastern shores of England may, however, be accounted for by sea-erosion.
The information obtained from the short intermittent excavations which are possible within the limits of tidal areas has been supplemented by various industrial operations, such as dock-excavations, submarine tunnelling, borings, etc., which have disclosed former land-surfaces some fifty or sixty feet below present sea-level.
The following extract from Mr. Pengelly's paper, "On the Submerged Forest of Torbay," gives a good idea of this class of evidence: "Similar and coeval forests are well known to exist on the opposite shores of all the British seas and channels. . . . Everywhere the change of level appears to be the same, the stumps in situ are always vertical, and the roots have the same relation to the horizontal plain as they must have had when growing. Mixed with the vegetable remains, which are those of species of plants and trees as still exist in the neighbourhood, there have been found the bones of the mammoth, Bos longifrons, red-deer, horse and wild-hog. In the Torbay forest a human implement made of the antler of the red-deer was found twelve feet below the surface."
From a recent correspondence which appeared in Nature I take the following extracts, which strongly support the above views on the submergence question. Mr. J. Sinel, of Jersey, thus describes excavations in St. Helier (September 19, 1912):
"The soil beneath the town of St. Helier is, in descending order, composed as follows:
"(1) A deposit of blown sand and recent alluvium from 4 feet to 6 feet thick.
"(2) A bed of brown sandy and clayey peat (with relics of Gallo-Roman times).
"(3) A marine deposit consisting of clay, shingle and shell gravel from 2 feet to 5 feet thick.
"(4) A bed of firm black peat and forest remains which ranges from 5 feet to 14 feet in thickness.
"This peat and forest-bed is traceable to the shore, where it forms the well-known 'submerged forest,' thence (as revealed by the dredge) across the channel that separates the island from the continental coast from Cape La Hague to Finisterre.
"This no doubt is all one with the post-glacial submerged forests of the British Isles and North-western Europe in general, for all through the flora and fauna are the same, viz. oak, alder, birch, hazel, Juncus and Equisetum with hazel nuts in profusion. Bos longifrons, red-deer and wolf, even elytra of the little purplish-green beetle, Geotropes vernalis, are present in this layer beneath St. Helier, as they are from extreme north to south throughout the vast forest area. ••••• "Neolithic relics, in the way of stone implements and fragments of pottery, are very plentiful on the surface and in the upper levels of this forest-bed, but, so far as I can ascertain, have never been recorded from the strata beneath. In a series of excavations now in progress for the foundations of a building in St. Heller, the strata as above described have been cut through and in the blue clay beneath the forest bed (which here is eight feet thick) were found Neolithic implements as follows."
After describing a number of worked objects which he considers Neolithic implements, Mr. Sinel goes on to write: "In the same stratum as these, and in a layer of yellow clay which lies beneath, flint implements of decided Chellian, Acheulian and Mousterian types are frequent, but the relics above specified are clearly and decidedly Neolithic.
"As the portion of the forest-bed at this spot must represent the vegetation that first fringed the land as it recovered from the depression of glacial times, and these relics lie beneath it, we cannot but conclude that the Neolithic races date from a period far more remote than has usually been assigned to them, and that they must, in fact, date back nearly into the last glacial period."
In reply to the above, Mr. A. L. Leach, London, writes as follows (October 3):
"The letter of Mr. J. Sinel, in Nature, September 19, on the submerged forest-bed in Jersey, deals with several questions of great interest in relation to the submerged forest on the south-western coast of Wales. I hope to publish shortly an account of this forest-bed (so far as it is seen in Pembrokeshire) and the deposits associated with it, but in the mean-time I may state that I have found worked flints—flakes and cores—in two localities on the Pembrokeshire coast in positions which correspond with that of the stratum of blue clay below the forest-bed of St. Helier. These flints were clearly worked by men who inhabited the woodland, now submerged, before the trees fell into decay and formed the peaty mass of trunks, branches, leaves, etc., overlying the true root-bed of the 'submerged forest.' One locality near Amroth in Carmarthen Bay yielded cores and flakes in abundance; the circumstances indicate the existence of a chipping-floor or implement factory on this part of the submerged land-surface, which now, during spring-tides, is covered by no less than twenty feet of water. In the patch of submerged forest recently exposed at Freshwater West, in southern Pembrokeshire, a few small implements were also found.
"Both at Amroth and Freshwater West the flints occurred below the peaty layer in a thin blue slime or clayey silt, which rests in turn upon clayey rubble largely composed of material derived from older superficial deposits. There is evidence that the forest trees in Pembrokeshire are rooted either in unquestionable boulder clay or in a clayey drift allied to the glacial deposits. ••••• "The geological horizon of the worked flints of the Pembrokeshire submerged land-surface appears identical with that of the Neolithic implements from St. Helier. One of the most important questions that arises is whether these implements are so distinctively Neolithic in character as to exclude the possibility that they may belong to an earlier period."
These extracts clearly indicate the existence of a pre-Neolithic civilization within the submerged area of the English Channel; and there is presumptive evidence to show that a careful examination of the relics will bring out a parallelism between them and the archæological remains of the transition period as recorded from the north of Scotland and the various Azilian stations throughout Western Europe.
This hypothesis is further strengthened by analogous discoveries on the coast of Essex, as shown by the recent discoveries of Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S. (Anth. Institute, 1912). Here are submerged strata some of which clearly disclose that they were formerly land-surfaces inhabited by prehistoric people. "We have no evidence to show," writes Mr. Warren, "at what period this submergence commenced, as the record now lies beneath perhaps fifty or a hundred fathoms of water. But the date of its final stage can be approximately fixed by the prehistoric remains which are found on the ancient surface which was then carried beneath the sea. . . . That this surface was inhabited by prehistoric man, down to, and probably far below, low-water mark is proved beyond a doubt by the prehistoric remains now found upon it. Stone implements are generally distributed over this surface. They are sometimes scarce, sometimes concentrated in considerable numbers on small areas. Not unfrequently the sites of hearths are found; sometimes there are small pits about three feet in diameter and about two feet in depth, the interior filled with wood charcoal, the edges showing much evidence of fire. I suggest that these may possibly have been used for burning pottery. I have found several such on, the buried prehistoric surface of East Essex."
Mr. Warren describes some special sites on these prehistoric floors, containing large quantities of charcoal, pottery and flint implements, which he regards as evidence of some kind of industry. Beneath one of these special sites on a prehistoric floor there was discovered in 1910 a human skeleton buried in a contracted position and having apparently the hands and feet bound to the body by ropes of sand-grass. The locality in which this important discovery was made is near Walton-on-Naze. Here the sea is disintegrating the coast-line, and in recent times its action has exposed the following strata:
(1) A low cliff of tidal silt eight to ten feet in height.
(2) A prehistoric floor over which were found "worked flints, broken pottery and rounded lumps of burnt clay, the whole mixed with much wood charcoal."
(3) The skeleton was a little over two feet beneath the prehistoric floor and, according to Dr. Keith (Ancient Types of Man, p. 7), was that of a female, five feet four inches in height, with a cephalic index of 78. This could not have been a recent burial, as until the result of recent sea-erosion, the skeleton lay twelve feet below the present surface of high-water mark. From these data the inference of submergence since Neolithic times is too patent to require further comment (see Chap. X).
But when these submerged land-areas and forests were inhabited by a maritime population, who lived principally on the produce of the sea, it cannot be supposed that the inland parts of the country remained uninhabited. Hence we ought to find some traces of these British people both on submerged and unsubmerged habitable areas. Indications of human occupancy on the latter have occasionally been observed by various writers, but the most suggestive evidence which has come under my cognizance is recorded in a communication to Man (1910, 48), by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., and the Rev. R. A. Gatty, LL.B., entitled The Pit Dwellings at Holderness.
The foundations of these dwellings were excavated in the boulder clay to a depth of four or five feet, and varied in shape and size, some being as long as forty feet and nine to ten feet in breadth. They are distributed in groups in the vicinity of Atwick, some two miles from Hornsea, and not far from the present coast, but it appears that when they were inhabited the sea was far away, as no shells or fish-bones were among their kitchen débris. From their number it was evident that the district was then inhabited by a large population. They are now filled in with a dark coloured deposit, the result of mud washed into them by local rainfall. This mud contained no relics of any kind, all the animal bones, implements, and pottery having been found on the floor of the pits.
"After this flooding," writes Canon Greenwell, "had taken place, which either drove out the occupants or found the pits already deserted, they became covered by a deposit of surface soil from fifteen to eighteen inches in thickness. This soil, which equally covered the boulder clay and the pits, has never been in any way broken through, or otherwise disturbed in the spaces occupied by the pits, and, therefore, they must have been dug out and inhabited before the mud was carried into them, and the surface soil had later on accumulated over them. In this surface soil the ordinary implements of flint, and other stones characteristic of the Neolithic Age, and in some measure those of bronze, have been found in fair abundance. On the other hand, neither on the floors of the pits nor in the filling in has any example of the highly finished implements of the Stone Age, or any portion of one of them, come to light.
"This is a very important fact in connection with the time when the pits were occupied. That time can only, however, be considered as it has a relation to other periods of occupation in the Stone Age in this district, and it must not be attempted to give it a place in chronological time. If the occupation of the pits is considered with reference to other and later periods, when the country was inhabited by early man, it is evident that the people, who had their abode in them, must have been living there a long time before the Neolithic men of the polished Stone Age were settled in the district."
It is scarcely possible to put any other interpretation on the above facts than that the Holderness pit-dwellers belonged to the transition period. As to the presence of rough pottery, it may be observed that pottery was well represented in the débris of the hut-village of Campigny described as typical of this period in France (Rev. de l'École d'Anthrop. 1898, p. 402).
Similar evidence of sites inhabited in former times, but now submerged, is abundantly met with in several localities along the shores of Brittany, as at Mont-Dol and the little island of Er Lanic, near Gavr'Inis. From the facts disclosed on the former site M. Sirodot infers that man was an inhabitant of the district when the sea washed the foot of Mont-Dol, that upon the retreat of the sea its exposed bed became overgrown with great forests, and that after a long interval the sea again encroached on the land and submerged the forests within early historic times (Études Critiques d'Archéologie préhistorique). M. de Closmadeuc has shown that on Er Lanic there is a double cromlech in the form of the figure 8, the half of which is now entirely submerged. These deductions seem to be confirmed by the numerous legendary traditions of buried cities which are prevalent in this part of Europe.
According to the Abbé Hamard (Ibid., p. 37), there is an old manuscript, of the eighth or ninth century, preserved in the library of Avranches, in which it is stated that formerly there was, in the vicinity of Mont-Saint- Michel, a dense forest extending six miles from the sea which harboured all manner of wild beasts. Now the whole district is covered by the sea and sand-beds. To show how much the sea has encroached an the land in these parts he reproduces on old map of Contentin, of the thirteenth century, which shows Mont-Saint-Michel a long way inland, the island of Jersey as united to the Continent, and a corresponding increase of land all along the adjacent shores.
When the ethnological problems regarding the immigrations into Britain of Neolithic races fall to be considered we shall have a few further remarks to make on submerged antiquities, and their bearing on the solution of the supposed hiatus in the continuity of a human population in Britain since Palæolithic times.