An account of the discovery and characters of a human skeleton found beneath a stratum of chalky boulder clay near Ipswich / by J. Reid Moir and Arthur Keith.

  • Moir, J. Reid (James Reid), 1879-1944.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An account of the discovery and characters of a human skeleton found beneath a stratum of chalky boulder clay near Ipswich / by J. Reid Moir and Arthur Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    under the bones is full of rootlets, and as these do not go deeper it appears that they were feeding on this chalky layer. The discovery of a human skeleton below the chalky boulder clay did not come as a great surprise to me, because for some long time past I have been finding well-worked flint implements in the clay and at the junction of the clay with the glacial sand ; I have found some implements within ten yards of where the bones were found and at exactly the same horizon. These implements are unpatinated and in many cases as sharp as the day they were made. This fact shows, I think, that the ice-sheet which deposited the boulder clay was moving over a land surface on which these implements were lying, and some of them consequently got incorporated into its bottom moraine. Thus, having found the implements, we have by great good fortune found one of the men who made them. The worked flints discovered are of pre-pal8eolithic forms, and have been identified by Dr. Kutot of Brussels, as his pre-Strepy type. As no true palteoliths have ever been found in the boulder clay or the gravels underlying it, we may conclude that these deposits pre-date the paleolithic gravels in this part of the country. The true paleolithic implements are found in totally different deposits, which, as usual, occur as river terraces, and are of a much less ancient date than the glacial deposits. This fact leads up to a consideration whether the Dipping Valley was eroded in post chalky boulder clay times (section of valley, see Fig. 2), and while I am not sufficiently acquainted with the geological facts to speak definitely on this point, yet it seems to me highly probable that such was the case. The geological map certainly shows boulder clay on each side of the valley at a high level, but none down in the Valley itself. Also Mr. Whitaker, writing to me on this matter, says ; “ I’ve always looked at the Dipping Valley in common with others, as eroded in post-glacial times. In it, as in others, there may be places where an older channel (glacial or pre-glacial) may be cut across, or followed. That the whole valley is pre-glacial is another matter, and I don’t agree with that view. The glacial drift has certainly gone across from side to side, but for the most part not in a hollow. “ The present valley has been cut through this drift.” But whether the whole valley is post-glacial or not, it is nevertheless certain that a very large portion of it has been completely eroded since the deposition of the chalky boulder clay. We can now proceed to discuss the second question: “ Is the boulder clay in situ or redeposited.” A little less than half-a-mile to the east of where the skeleton was found is a pit showing an 18-foot section of chalky boulder clay which is undeniably in situ. Eealizing the importance of ascertaining wliether the boulder clay above the human bones was continuous with that in the other pit mentioned, I asked for and received permission to dig small pits in the fields separating the two pits. These excavations resulted in establishing the fact that the clay is continuous.