H. J. Osborne White

Memoirs of the Geological Survey England 1926

[63] The northernmost of the high-level gravels represented in Sheet 319 are the little patches about midway between Uckfield and Newick, and south of Piltdown Common. Especial interest attaches to the deposit around Barkham Farm as being the first to yield remains of Eoanthropus dawsoni A. S. Woodward, commonly known as 'Piltdown Man.' The gravel here is about 110 to 120 ft. above O.D., and 70 to 80 ft. above the level of the River Ouse, half a mile distant to the south. The flat top of the ridge of Tunbridge Wells Sand on which it lies is a relic of the floor of a wide, shallow, maturely graded valley, now but indistinctly defined on the east and west by a slight rise of the ground to altitudes little above 200 ft. O.D., and much dissected bv the Ouse and its upper tributaries. Other relics of the ancient valley-bottom, not so marked, and in most cases more readily recognised on the map than in the field, lie near the course of the Ouse on the Wealden Beds southward to Barcombe, and it is probable that the same feature is represented in the Chalk country beyond by a stage of gravel-capped terraces, presently to be described.

The gravel at Barkham is exposed in a row of small, unimpressive diggings beside the drive from the farmhouse to the main gate a little west of Taylor's farm, and in trial-holes on the north-western side of the hedge adjacent to and parallel with the drive. Tbe greater part of the gravel at present visible is sandy and stratified, and undoubtedly water-laid. It occupies hollows in the Tunbridge Wells Sand, banks of which rise to the soil in places, and this disposition, coupled with the bedded structure and a capping of loamy trail, suggests that it represents only the lower layers of an originally thicker deposit, whose upper portions have been removed bv soli[64]fication. Whether the gravel was laid down bv the Newick branch of the Ouse, or by one of its left-hand tributaries, is not apparent.

Mr. R. Kenward, the owner of Barkham, states that the gravel was dug to a depth of 7 ft. in old pits, now filled in and grassed over, on the south-eastern side of the drive. In the existing pits (northwest of the drive), which are those whence most of the remains of Eoanthropus have been obtained,¹ the gravel appears not to exceed 4 ft., but it is reported to be rather thicker near the farm out-buildings, farther down the gentle southward slope of the top of the ridge.

Fig. 8.–Section of Gravel-bed at Barkham, near Piltdown

Approximate scale = 1/24 of natural size.

After C. Dawson and A. Smith Woodward, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxx, 1914, fig. 1, p.83.

1 Surface-soil, with occasional iron-stained subangular flints, flint-implements of all ages, and pottery. Thickness - 1 foot.

2 Pale-yellow sandy loam, with small lenticular patches of dark, ironstone-gravel and iron-stained subangular flints. One Palaeolithic worked flint was found in the middle of this bed. Thickness = 2 feet 6 inches.

3 Dark-brown ferruginous gravel, with subangular flints and tabular ironstone. Pliocene rolled fossils, and Eoanthropus remains, Castor, etc., ‘Eoliths’ and one worked flint . . . Floor covered with depressions. 18 inches.

4 Pale-yellow, finely-divided clay and sand, forming a mud reconstructed from the underlying strata. Certain subangular flints occur, bigger than those in the overlying bed. Thickness 8 inches.

5 Undisurbed strata of the Tunbridge Wells Sand . . .

So much for the general lie of the deposit. For particulars of its character and contents we must turn to the detailed accounts, by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and the late Charles Dawson, which [65] have been published from time to time during the last twelve years. ² A summary of the results of their investigations is given below.

Figure 8, copied from a diagram in Dawson and Smith Woodward's 1914 paper, is a generalized section of the beds exposed in the Barkham pits. The succession varies from point to point, and none of the beds numbered 2, 3, 4 persists through all the exposures.

The large flints which characterise Bed 4 are thickly patinated, and often so permeated with iron oxide as to resemble ironstone, some of them can be disintegrated with a penknife. Flint casts of Chalk fossils found in this or other parts of the gravel include Echinocorys scutatus Leske, of a shape indicative of the Cortestudinarium Zone, and Inoceramus inconstans Woods.

The only post-Cretaceous fossils observed in situ in Bed 4 were "small fragments of bone," but a remarkable implement, made from a piece of a femur of a large elephant (such as Elephas antiquus or E. meridionalis), and found in the soil near one of the pits, is inferred, from its condition and coating of yellow sandy clay, to have come from this bottom bed. "The implement [Fig. 9] is a stout and nearly straight narrow plate of bone, 41 cm. long and varying from 9 cm. to 1O cm. in width, with the thicker end artificially pointed or keeled, the thinner end artificially rounded." It appears to have been detached as a flake in the first instance, but the ends are shaped entirely by cutting, which was done when the bone was in a comparatively fresh state.

Fig. 9.–Bone Implement from Gravel at Barkham

After C. Dawson :& Smith Woodward, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxxi, 1915, pl. xiv, fig. 1.

The junction of Beds 3 and 4 is not always so sharply defined as its representation in Fig. 8 implies. Bed 3 is the most interesting [66] of the series. Nearly all the mammalian remains found at Barkham were obtained from, or traced to, it. These comprise:–

Mastodon cf. arvernensls Crois. & Joub.

Stegodon sp.

Hippopotamus sp.

Equns sp.– a tooth.

Castor fiber Linn. – part of mandibular ramus and detached teeth.

Other remains, not explicitly assigned to this bed, but believed to have been dug or ploughed out of it, include "part of a deer's metatarsal, split longitudinally," which was found on a spoil-heap, and the base of an antler of red deer (Cervus elephus Linn.), found on arable land a short distance west of the gravel-pits.

From their worn condition and peculiar mineralization, the teeth representative of the first three species named in the above list are inferred by Dawson and Smith Woodward to have been "derived from some destroyed Pliocene deposit, probably situated not far away." The remains of Eoanthropus, and those of Castor fiber, though of softer material, are not rolled, and doubtless are contemporary with the Barkham gravel, which Dawson and Smith Woodward regard as early Pleistocene.

Bones from this bed (3) are darkly stained throughout by iron oxide. Analysis of a piece of the Eoanthropus skull showed "a considerable proportion of iron," together with "a large proportion of phosphates (originally present in the bone)," and the specific gravity was 2.115. No silica, gelatine, or organic matter was found in it.

The skull-fragments, jawbone, and teeth of Eoanthropus dawsoni exhibit simian traits, which are so pronounced in the jawbone as to warrant the ascription of the elderly female (?) individual to whom, in Smith Woodward's opinion, all these relics belonged, to a distinct genus of the Hominidae. The discovery of the skull-fragments and the jawbone at different times, in excavated material yielding other mammalian remains, leaves some room for doubt whether they actually formed parts of the same being: more than one zoologist of standing has maintained that the jawbone is that of a chimpanzee; but at present the balance of opinion favours Smith Woodward's interpretation. ³

Edge-chipped tabular and nodular flints of 'eolithic' (borer and hollow scraper) types are common in Bed 3. The few indubitable implements found here are of rough workmanship, and have been compared with Chellean and pre-Chellean forms: they are not of any well-defined cultural facies. A battered flint nodule, which seems to have been used as a hammer, was obtained from the base of this bed.

[67] Bed 2 is a kind of trail, containing pockets and streaks of gravelly material probably caught up from helow. Though indicated by a straight line in Fig. 8, the junction with Bed 3 is usually uneven, and the gravel just below it shows signs of disturbance. The palaeolith mentioned in the legend of Fig. 8 is a thick triangular flake, worked on one face, and retaining part of the original surface of the flint-nodule at its thicker, basal end. The workmanship is likened to that of tools from Chelles.

Neoliths are rather common in the soil, distinguished as Bed I In fig. 8.

Stratified gravel of ferruginous sandstone and flmts, like that at Barkham, and at about the same level, has been proved at Moon's Farm, on the neighbouring ridge to the east; and dehris of similar deposits occurs in the soil on the ridges in other parts of the upper Ouse Basin. Among the stones raked from a field ^"about 2 miles from the Piltdown pit" ⁴ at Barkham, C. Dawson and a friend discovered, in 1915, two well-fossilized hominian skull-bones and a tooth, which Smith Woodward refers to his Eoanthropus dawsoni, together with part of a tooth of Rhinoceros sp. as highly mineralized as the rhinoceros teeth previously found at Barkham.

Thin washy gravel containing a large proportion of flints occurs about 100 to 120 ft. above 0.D. at Barcombe Cross ⁵ and the Old Windmill 3/4 m. south-westward; while a thicker deposit, marked by a distinct plateau-feature, caps the Weald Clay at about 80 ft. above 0.D. in the south-eastern part of the spur which runs south-eastward from Barcombe Cross, and terminates in the low bluff, called Crink Hill, close to Barcombe Mills Station. The Crink Hill gravel has been dug in shallow pits, now surfed over. The writer learns from Sir Arthur Smith Woodward that "a thick and well-mineralized human skull of modern type" was found by C. Dawson "in the fields" hereabouts ("just above Barcombe Mills Station"), and that pieces of it–so far undescribed– are in the British Museum (Natural History).

Barcombe Church stands on a small inclined spread of angular flint gravel, 50 to 60 ft. above 0.D., and probably of later date than the gravel at Crink Hill. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, ⁶ and other writers on Sussex geology, mention the occurrence here of remains of "large mammalia," including teeth of "the Asiatic Elephant "– a term of doubtful significance, but frequently applied at one time

[68] Rydenswell

Rodnell Northease Upper Malling Park St. Mary’s The Banke Barkham

Farm Rise House House Church & Crink Farm (Piltdown) Pit

Avery Hill

\ | | | | / / / |

\ \

South- Rodwell Upper Lewes Hamsey Place The Crink miles Sharps Gold-

ease Rise Farm Hanger Bridge

upper line: Piltdown Terrace

lower line: Present Slope of River Ouse

vertical right caption: Geology of Lewes -10 to -100 Feet Above O.D.

Fig. 10.– Diagram to show the relationship of the Piltdown Terrace to the River Ouse

[69[ to elephantine remains observed in deposits (such as the "Elephant Bed" of Brighton) in which Elephas primigenius Blum. is well represented.

Continuing southward, the next of the gravel-spreads likely to be of about the age of the Barkham deposit is that on the spur supporting Malling House, in the bend of the Ouse north of Lewes. Where seen in the railway cutting it is thin and consists mainly of angular flints, with some flint pebbles. The gravel is about 50 ft. above O.D. on the end of the spur, near the river, and rather higher about Malling House.

Upper and Lower Rise, in the alluvial plain of the Brooks south of Lewes, bear small patches of loamy, degraded gravel (of flints with small bits of iron-sandstone), ranging up to a little higher than 50 ft. above O.D. at the summits of these hillocks.

The Brooks plain is bordered on the west by the bhlff of a grave-lcovered terrace, extending from near Kingston to Southease, but much dissected by coombes heading in the adjacent Downs. At Iford and Rodmell the inner edge of this terrace is about level with the tops of the Rises: its less definite outer or western limit varies in altitude, up to about 110 ft. above O.D. at Swanborough Farm near Kingston.

Latelv-widened cuttings along the high road from Lewes to Piddinghoe afford good sections of the gravel, which proves not to be a normal river-gravel, but an imperfectly assorted mass of unworn and little-worn white and brown flints, mixed with flint pebbles and Eocene iron-sandstone, in a ground-mass generally loamy but including frequent lenses and irregular bodies of brown brick-earth with scattered stones, and of yellow Eocene sand. A rude banding is often apparent, and a coarse lamination is occasionally observable in the sandy parts, but there is no proper stratification. The deposit is a wash, made up of loose material transported from the Downs on the west to an old floor of the Ouse valley, during one of the ages of rapid degradation which characterised the Pleistocene period in the South of England. At the time of its formation the deposit doubtless contained much detrital chalk, since dissolved away, save at the edges of the pipes into which the gravel and loam are settling

In the road-cutting between 200 and 300 yds. south-east of Northease Farm, close to the point where the footpath takes off to Rodmell Church, the gravel and gravelly brick-earth are capped by a few feet of Coombe Rock, consisting of coarse chalk and flint rubble, passing up into marl with small pellets of chalk. The base of the Coombe Rock is uneven and sharply defined.

The terrace narrows southward and terminates on the side of the Ouse valley at Southease. At its outer edge here, about 100 ft. above O.D.., a cutting by the cross-roads north-west of the church shows 20 ft. of red loamy gravel (mainly angular flints) occupying an exceptionally large pipe, of which neither the bottom nor the southern side is seen.

[70] Farther south, piped remnants of the same terrace-gravel occur in the bluff at Piddinghoe. A thick ovate palaeolith of early St. Acheul type, said to have been found 12 ft. deep in "an old alluvial deposit" at Piddinghoe, is in the Brighton Borough Museum, which also contains a weathered pointed implement, of Chellean pattern, from Rodmell.

Figure 10, contributed by Mr. F. H. Edmunds, is based on data collected in the course of the recent revision of the mapping of the Ouse Valley gravels. It shows that the seaward slope of the ‘Piltdown’ stage of terrace-gravels, while resembling that of the present thalweg of the Ouse, is rather more pronounced than the latter; a discrepancy possibly due to the more heavily loaded state of the river in ‘Piltdown’ times.

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1 A wooden memorial has been lately erected near the spot where the pieces of skull were found.

2 Dawson, C., and A. S. Woodward, 'On the Discovery of a Palaeolithic Skull and Mandible . . . at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex),' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxix, 1913, pp. 117-144. Idem, 'Supplementary Note on the Discovery of a Palaeolithic Human Skull and Mandible at Piltdown (Sussex),' ibid., vol. lxx., 1914, pp. 82-93. Idem ' On a Bone Implement from Piltdown (Sussex),' ihid. vol. xxi, 1915, pp. 144-148. Woodward, A. S. 'Fourth Note on the Piltdown Gravel with Evidence of a Second SkuU of Eoanthropus dawsoni,' ibid., vol. lxxiii, 1918, pp. 1-7. Idem, 'A Guide to the Fossil Remains of Man in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural History),' 3rd. ea., 1922, pp. 8-25.

3 A good review of the 'Eoanthropus ' controversy, with references to the literature, will be found in M. Boule's 'Fossil Men: Elements of Human Palaeontology,' 1923, pp. 157, 175, 471, 472.

4 Smith Woodward, op. cit., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxxiii, 1918, p. 3. The direction of the field is not mentioned. In response to an enquiry, Sir A. Smith Woodward states (in lit. 28th Oct., 1924) that the situation of this field was never revealed to him, but that he is satisfied that it is "somewhere on Mr. John Martin's Netherhall farm . . . near Little Chailey (or Fletching) Common." Netherhall farm is in the area of Sheet 303 (Tunbridge Wells), north of Newick, on a ridge-top some 60 or 70 ft. above the Ouse.

5 This and most of the other gravels noticed in the following pages have been already described by J. V. Elsden, 'Superficial Geology of the Southern Portion of the Weald Area,' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xl ii, 1886, pp.646-648.

6 On the Gravel Beds of the Valley of the Wey,' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii, 1851, p. 288.