Every step in the line of enquiry we have been following, from whatever point of view we have regarded the evidence, has forced upon us the conclusion that a long interval elapsed between the Areniferous and Turbiferous series as seen in the Fens; and yet, having regard to the geographical history of the area with which we commenced, we cannot but feel that the various deposits represent only episodes in a continuous slow development due to changes of level both here and further afield and the accidents incidental to denudation.

But the particular deposits which we are examining happen to have been laid down near sea level where small changes produce great effects. We may feel assured that over the adjoining higher ground the changes would have been imperceptible when they were occurring and the results hardly noticeable.

If the Fen Beds include nearly the whole of the Neolithic stage the idea that glacial conditions then prevailed over the adjoining higher ground is quite untenable.

So far everything has taught us that the Fens occupy a well-defined position in the evolution of the geographical features of East Anglia and also that the fauna is distinctive, and, having regard to the whole facies, quite different from that of the sands and gravels which occur at various levels all round and pass under the Turbiferous Series of the Fens.

We will now enquire what is the place of these deposits in the "hierarchy" based upon the remains of man and his handiwork.

No Palaeolithic remains have ever been found in the Fen deposits. We must not infer from this that there is everywhere evidence of a similar break or long interval of time between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages. There are elsewhere remains of man and his handiwork which we must refer to later Palaeolithic than anything found in the Areniferous Series just near the Fen Beds, and there are, not far off, remains of man's handiwork which appear to belong to the Neolithic age, but to an earlier part of it than anything yet found in association with the Fen Beds.

The newer Palaeolithic remains referred to occur chiefly in caves and the older Neolithic objects are for the most part transitional forms of implement found on the surface in various places around but outside the Fens and in the great manufactures of implements at Cissbury and Grimes Graves, in which we can study the embryology of Neolithic implements and observe the development of forms suggested by those of Palaeolithic age or by nature. The sequence and classification adopted in these groups, both those of later Palaeolithic and those of earlier Neolithic age, are confirmed by an examination of the contemporary fauna; the Areniferous facies prevailing in the caves and the Turbiferous facies characterising the pits and refuse-heaps of Cissbury and Grimes Graves.

It is interesting to note that these ancient flint workings, in which we find the best examples of transitional forms, have both of them some suggestion of remote age. The pits from which the flint was procured at Cissbury are covered by the ramparts of an ancient British camp and the ground near Grimes Graves has yielded Palaeolithic implements in situ in small rain-wash hollows close by—as seen near "Botany Bay." Palaeolithic man came into this area sometime after the uplift of East Anglia out of the Glacial Sea and was here through the period of denudation and formation of river terraces which ensued and the age of depression which followed. But Neolithic man belongs to the later part of that period of depression when the ends of some of the river gravels were again depressed below sea level and the valleys had scarcely sufficient fall for the rivers to flow freely to the sea. In the stagnant swamps and meres thus caused the Fen deposits grew, and in this time the Shippea man met his death mired in the watery peat of the then undrained fens.

Human bones have not been very often found in the Fen, and when they do occur it is not always easy to say whether they really belong to the age of the peat in which they are found or may not be the remains of someone mired in the bog or drowned in one of the later filled up ditches. That they have long been buried in the peat is often obvious from the colour and condition of the bone. By the kindness of our friends Mr and Mrs Luddington my wife and I received early information of the discovery of human bones in trenching on some of their property in the Fen close to Shippea Hill near Littleport and we were able to examine the section and get some of the bones out of the peat ourselves (Fig. 6). A deposit of about 4' 6" of peat with small thin lenticular beds of shell marl here rested on lead colored alluvial clay. In the base of the peat about four inches above the Buttery Clay a human skeleton was found bunched up and crowded into a small space, less than two feet square, as if the body had settled down vertically.

Fig. 6. Diagram Section across Shippea Hill.