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VI.—Researches at Rickmansworth: Report on Excavations made in 1914 on behalf of the British Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Reginald A. Smith  and
Henry Dewey
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Extract

After two short seasons spent in investigating the high terrace of the lower Thames, it was considered desirable to examine the gravel of a tributary, in order to equate if possible the various deposits in the two valleys, and to confirm or correct the sequence deduced from former excavatións at home and abroad. Two sites near Rickmansworth, at and just below the junction of the Gade and Colne rivers, have been known for years as productive of palaeoliths, and every facility was readily afforded for examining the gravel in pits at Croxley Green and Mill End by the respective owners, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Lord Rendlesham, and the lessees, the RickmansworthGravel Co., Ltd., and Messrs. Horwood Bros. Leave of absence was granted by the Trustees of the British Museum, and nine days were devoted to the work in October, the means being provided from a fund under the control of our Vice-President, Sir Hercules Read, Keeper of the Department concerned. Assistance from the geological side was given unofficially by Mr. Dewey, of H.M. Geological Survey, who has read through the paper in manuscript, and contributes an appendix dealing with some of the geological problems involved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 66 , 1915 , pp. 195 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1915

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References

page 198 note 1 Archaeologia, lxiv, 182Google Scholar.

page 200 note 1 Compare Swanscombe example, Archaeologia, lxiv, pl. ix, fig. 9Google Scholar.

page 202 note 1 Proceedings, xxi, 31Google Scholar; Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc., xiii, 65Google Scholar (two photographs of Long Valley Wood pit).

page 202 note 2 Exhibited with others from the Herts. County Museum, St. Albans (Curator, Mr. G. E. Bullen), through the kindness of our Fellow Mr. Page, Hon. Curator.

page 203 note 1 Described by Dr. Sturge in Proceedings of East Anglian Prehistoric Society, i, 66Google Scholar.

page 204 note 1 The Dawn of Human Intention: an experimental and comparative Study of Eoliths (Mem. Lit. and Phil. Soc. Manchester, liii (1909), 9Google Scholar).

page 204 note 2 Proc. Geol. Assoc, xxi, 245Google Scholar.

page 205 note 1 About 40 ft. from the face of the pit, which is only a foot or two higher. Another mass near the north end of the pit is also 40 ft. from the face, and practically the same height as the cliff.

page 208 note 1 Obermaier, Steingeräte des französischen Altpäläolithikums, p. 65.

page 209 note 1 Proc. Geol. Assoc, xx, 96Google Scholar; see also vol. xxi, 244 (Kidner), for the Reading beds.

page 210 note 1 Dr. Oddie showed in 1909 an oval specimen from Croxley pit, 2½ ft. long; other large pieces were noted two years before, and one was sent to the Herts. County Museum at St. Albans. Photographs of the Reading beds and sarsens at Croxley are published by the Geologists' Association in Geology in the Field, part i, 46, pl. ii.

page 210 note 2 Proc. Geol. Assoc., xxi, 244Google Scholar.

page 211 note 1 This seems to be the view taken in Proc. Geol. Assoc., xiv, 158Google Scholar, where Allen Brown discussed the inclusion of sarsens.

page 211 note 2 Reasons are given elsewhere for regarding these spreads as fluvio-glacial, and the term plateau gravel is best reserved for the still higher deposits, coloured red on the geological map of 1871, but pink on the 1904 map, no distinction being drawn.

page 211 note 3 During the discussion of this Report, a District geologist of the Survey bluntly stated that the river terrace was obvious at Croxley Green, a view not taken by those responsible for the maps of 1871 and 1904 (London district: no alteration at Rickmansworth).

page 211 note 4 Parts of Middlesex, etc. (sheet 7); see also his Geology of London, i, 304, 323Google Scholar.

page 212 note 1 References given by Mr. Whitaker, , Geology of London, i, 309Google Scholar.

page 212 note 2 Natural Science, Aug. 1894, vol. v, 101, 104Google Scholar.

page 213 note 1 Proc. Geol. Assoc., xiv, 171, 173Google Scholar.

page 213 note 2 Woodward, H. B., Geology of the London District, p. 68.Google Scholar

page 214 note 1 Proc Geol. Assoc., xxvi (1915), 6Google Scholar.

page 214 note 2 Allen Brown insisted on a distinction between the lower stratified beds (containing implements) and the tumbled masses above them at Hanwell and elsewhere in the Thames valley (Proc. Geol. Assoc., xiv, 155–7Google Scholar).

page 214 note 3 As noticed in Archaeologia, lxv, 187Google Scholar. For similar conditions in the Somme valley, see Annales de la Société géologique du Nord de la France, 1912, referred to by Commont, Les Homines contemporains du Renne, p. 28, note.

page 214 note 4 Proc. Geol. Assoc., xiv, 165Google Scholar. For glacial gravel at Harefield (200 ft. O. D.), ‘probably connected with one of the gaps’ in the Chilterns, and deposits near Amersham and Great Missenden, see p. 401 (A. E. Salter). Mr. Whitaker has some remarks on the gravel of the Colne and its tributaries in Geology of London, vol. i, p. 448Google Scholar.

page 215 note 1 Proc. Geol. Assoc., xv (1897), pp. 173, 174Google Scholar; cf. Salter, vol. xiv, pp. 401, 402; and vol xv, p. 274.

page 216 note 1 Archaeologia, lxiv, 180, 200Google Scholar, gives the sequence at Swanscombe; and for St. Aeheul finds there, see Proc. Geol. Assoc., xxv, 92, plates 15, 16Google Scholar.

page 216 note 2 Stone Implements, 2nd ed., 596, 597Google Scholar; V.C.H. Herts., i, 224Google Scholar.

page 216 note 3 For instance, Mr. Guy Nickalls has palaeoliths from the gravel at Gerrard's Cross, Bucks., at 280 ft. O. D., and more than 200 ft. above the nearest point of the Thames. Few would venture to call this a valley-deposit.

page 216 note 4 Proc. E. Anglian Prehistoric Soc., vol. ii. It may be added that according to Prof. Commont the ‘limon des plateaux’ is of late St. Acheul date (Geneva Congress, 1912, Comptes-rendus, i, 245Google Scholar); further references in Revue préhistorique, ii (1907), 160Google Scholar, and 9 (footnote); Commont, Les Hommes contemporains du Renne, 28, 43.

page 219 note 1 Proc. Geol. Assoc., xx (1907), p. 96Google Scholar, and H. Kidner, Ibid., xxi (1909), p. 244.

page 222 note 1 Summary of Progress for 1913 (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1914), pp. 32–6.

page 222 note 2 Geology of the Country around Reading (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1903), p. 75.

page 223 note 1 Holmes, T. V., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., xlviii (1892), p. 365CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 223 note 2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii, pp. 366–7, 1861Google Scholar; Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1896, pp. 1–13; Proc. E. Anglian Prehist. Soc., vol. i, p. 43Google Scholar.