Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Some of the Plateau implements were found not on the surface but in situ deep within the preglacial Plateau drift gravels. This would tend to rule out the supposition that the implements were of fairly recent origin and had been dropped on the drift gravels by the later inhabitants of the Plateau region. Prestwich (1892, p. 251) stated: “A fine specimen was found at South Ash in making a hole two feet deep for planting a tree, but as it was picked up on the thrownout soil, its exact position beneath the surface remains of course uncertain. It was the same with the one obtained in a post-hole at Kingsdown. For two others we have, however, the personal testimony of Mr. Harrison. One he took out of a bank of the red-clay-with-flints on the side of a pond and at the depth of two and a half feet, and the other from a bed of ‘deep red clay,’ two feet in depth, at the Vigo.”

In a footnote to the above passage, Prestwich (1892, p. 251) went on to say: “Mr. Bullen has just had a trench dug on the top of Preston Hill. It was nearly five feet deep, through surface soil (one foot); and the red-clay-with-flints in which, at a depth of three feet ten inches from the surface, he found an unworn white flint—apparently the broken point of a small implement.” As we have seen, Edmunds (1954, p. 56) characterized major portions of the clay-with-flints deposits as remainié beds of Tertiary age, some Pliocene, some even Eocene.

 

3.2.5 The Relative Antiquity of Eoliths and Paleoliths

Returning to the eoliths found on the surface of the Plateau, Prestwich (1892, p. 252) asked: “could these implements, like the neolithic implements which occur on the same ground, have been dropped on the surface where they are now found, at some later date?” Although most of the Neolithic implements were found in the lower river terraces, some did occur on the Plateau. Prestwich (1892, p. 252) went on to state, in response to his own question: “The answer to this is, that these neolithic implements show only weathering by exposure on the surface, and are found at all levels, whereas the plateau implements, besides their wear and colour, present all the physical characteristics due to having been imbedded in a special drift, and are confined to a special area. The two sorts, although found on the same ground, remain perfectly distinguishable.”