The Glacial deposits along the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts are important to geologists and archaeologists, as some of the formations here, even those which are later than the Cromer Forest Bed Series, are earlier than those of many other districts. Finds of Palaeolithic implements in this area have not so far been abundant, but an industry was recorded by us in 1938 (see Nature, 19th November, 1938, p. 912), and it is now possible to give greater details about its mode of occurrence. The geological dating of this industry will be discussed first, and the implements will then be considered from the archaeological point of view.

Before proceeding to give a description of the silted-up lake of Hoxne, and its contained flint implements, I would wish to express my thanks to Miss Dorothy Garrod, Professor P. G. H. Boswell, Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., Dr. O. Erdtman, Professor Henri Breuil, Mr. Alfred S. Barnes, Mr. Reginald Smith, and to Mr. Guy Maynard, for the help they have given me in my researches during 1924–6 at this spot. I am also especially indebted to the British Association, the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, and to Mr. Henry Balfour, F.R.S. for providing the funds to pay for the labour employed. The work of excavation was carried out under my supervision, by my trained digger, John Baxter, assisted by one of the men employed in the brickfield at Hoxne, and every care was taken to obtain a trustworthy record of the exact position each humanly flaked flint, or other specimen, occupied in the geological sequence.The implementiferous deposits of Hoxne are justly famous throughout the archæological world. In the year 1797, there was living at, or near, this place, one, John Frere, who evidently took a keen, and remarkably astute interest in the question of the antiquity of man. There is no doubt that then, as now, a brickfield existed at Hoxne, and Frere's attention was drawn to a quantity of flaked flints which were being turned out by the workmen, at a certain level below the brickearth. To realise the significance of what follows, it is necessary to grasp the fact that, in 1797, next to nothing was known regarding ancient flint implements of any kind, and least of all about those which we now know were made by Lower Palæolithic man.

In the course of my investigations of the district of Ipswich, Suffolk, I have found a large series of flint implements and other remains of man, ranging in date from the pre-Chellean of the Sub-Red Crag horizon of Pliocene times to the period of the Anglo-Saxons. The majority of these discoveries, so far as those relating to the Stone Age are concerned, were made in the beds forming the plateau, or in the sides of now dry valleys tributary to the main valley of the Gipping. Some little time ago, however, I determined to make—if possible—an examination of the deeply-buried deposits of the Gipping, and this research was later on extended to the tidal portion of the river which is known as the Orwell. It is now my purpose to give an account of this work, which has resulted in the getting together of a great quantity of flint implements, flakes, and cores, mammalian bones in considerable numbers, and some fragmentary portions of the human skeleton. I would here record my thanks to the Percy Sladen Fund, the Royal Society, the Ipswich Dock Commission and their Chief Engineer, Mr. Clarke, Messrs. Warren Livingstone, Ltd., Messrs. Alfred Coe, Ltd., Messrs Packard and James Fison (Thetford), Ltd., Miss Nina Layard, Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., Dr. Duckworth, Dr. C. Forster Cooper, Mr. Reginald Smith, the Curator and Mr. F. M. Cullum, of Ipswich Museum, Dr. T. W. Woodhead, Mr. A. S. Barnes, and Dr. G. Erdtman, who have each given invaluable help in one way or another to the prosecution of this research.

For several years prior to 1935, the Ipswich Museum, through the kindness of Mr P. H. Jordan, had been enriched by gifts of fossil mammalian bones and teeth found in a gravel pit at Brundon, near Sudbury, Suffolk. From my occasional visits to this excavation, it was clear that a very rich bone bed existed there, and discoveries from time to time, of flint implements in the gravel, led me to conclude that excavations conducted at this site would yield good results. This was confirmed by the geological features of the section, which appeared to show a stratified gravel resting upon, and overlaid by, glacial deposits, thus affording an opportunity of examining that by no means common phenomenon—a true inter-glacial bed.I communicated with my friend Professor P. G. H. Boswell, F.R.S., who, after an examination of the section, agreed with me that it would repay detailed research. Work was begun by means of a grant from the British Association, which appointed the following as a committee to undertake the research: Professor W. B. R. King, O.B.E. (chairman), Mr Guy Maynard (Secretary), Mr D. F. W. Baden-Powell, Professor P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Mr J. Reid Moir, F.R.S., Mr K. P. Oakley, Mr C. D. Ovey, Dr J. D. Solomon, and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S.

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