Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

J. Hamal-Nandrin and Charles Fraipont also reported on the geological considerations: “The detritus bed from which the flints are recovered is surmounted by several meters of Red Crag deposits containing Pliocene shells. The Red Crag is apparently an ancient shore, and the shells accumulated in the sand on the actual shore. There are very delicate shells, such as bivalves; many are found whole, and the least pressure, the least touch, causes them to break. A deposit of this type is primary, not composite or resorted (remanié). It is in the underlying detritus bed that the flints are found. At Thorington Hall the detritus bed lacks many rocks. It contains coprolites, phosphate nodules, and only some small flint pebbles. The superimposed Red Crag is also almost without rocks” (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 57).

Hamal-Nandrin and Fraipont then stated: “The rarity of rocks does not permit us to suppose that the flints may have been retouched by shocks or pressure in situ. It had to be done, either naturally or artificially, before their incorporation into the beds. Below the detritus bed is the London clay, from which some rolled blocks have been incorporated into the detritus bed. The detritus bed contains, along with bones of whales, fossils of terrestrial mammals certainly characteristic of the Pliocene. This gives evidence that it was upon an ancient land surface that the sea of the Late Pliocene deposited the Red Crag, a shoreline formation at this point. If the flints from below the Red Crag at Thorington Hall, in undisturbed strata, give signs of intelligent work, the being that used them is Pliocene” (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 57).

Hamal-Nandrin and Fraipont then turned their expertise to determining the presence of signs of intentional work on the sub-Crag flints: “A certain number of the pieces collected from below the Red Crag, and now found in the collections of Mr. Reid Moir and the Ipswich Museum, present, in our opinion, the characteristics that distinguish worked flints: a striking platform, clear bulb of percussion, and edges with series of small flakes removed, indicating intentional retouching and utilization as a tool. If you were to find these in strata of the Mousterian period, you would not hesitate to say that they are tools showing intentional work and utilization. . . . In our present state of knowledge, we cannot see that anything other than intelligent action could be capable of producing such effects. . . . At Thorington Hall, the rarity of stones and their dispersal does not permit us to suppose that the flints have been naturally retouched by impact or pressure. One can observe that in the level where the specimens are found one does not find any worn and fractured flints other than the ones appearing to be the result of intentional work. The worked flints are not only rare, but extremely rare, according to prehistorians who have studied the strata” (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 58).

After studying several of the collections of flints previously mentioned, Hamal-Nandrin and Fraipont declared themselves in favor of Moir’s view that the sub-Crag flints were implements of human manufacture. They further stated: “The chipped edges of the flints collected by Mr. Warren from the Eocene Bullhead beds, along with those produced artificially by him, are very different from the edges of those belonging to the detritus beds below the Crag at Ipswich” (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 58).

Capitan’s report also supported Moir’s position, both on the sub-Crag finds and those from the Cromer Forest Bed and related formations on the Norfolk coast. Capitan noted that the Pleistocene Boulder Clay had yielded to Moir and others some rare specimens of Mousterian type. But the middle glacial gravels below the Boulder Clay, according to Capitan, contained an enormous number of flints modified by glacial action. The flakes and their pseudoretouching from purely natural causes became an object of special study and consideration, for the precise purpose of comparison with the flints recovered from below the Red Crag. Certain pieces from the glacial gravels did, however, appear to be clearly worked, resembling the Chellean and preChellean types of tools. They were chipped in simple fashion and had a bright characteristic patina (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 59).