Small spits, consisting partly of blown sand, extend opposite the mouths of the Western Yar, the Newtown river, and the most extensive—at the mouth of the old Brading Harbour, separating the present reduced Bembridge Harbour from the sea. This is called St. Helen's Spit, or "Dover,"—the local name for these sand spits.
Chapter XII
THE COMING OF MAN.
We have watched the long succession of varied life on the earth recorded in the rocks, and now we come to the most momentous event of all in the history—the coming of Man. The first certain evidence of the presence of man on the earth is found with the coming of the Glacial Period,—unless indeed the supposed flint implements found by Mr. Reid Moir, under the Crag in Suffolk, should prove him earlier still. It is a rare chance that the skeleton of a land animal is preserved; especially rare in the case of a skeleton so frail as that of man. The best chance for the preservation of bones is in deposits in caves, which were frequently the dens of wild beasts and the shelters of man. But the implements used by early man were happily of a very imperishable nature. His favourite material, if he could get it, was flint. Flint could by dexterous blows have flake after flake taken off, till it formed a tool or weapon with sharp point and cutting edge. The implements, though only chipped, or flaked, were often admirably made. They have very characteristic shapes. Moreover, the kind of blow—struck obliquely—by which these early men made their tools left marks which stamp them as of human workmanship. The flake struck off shows what is called a "bulb of percussion"—a swelling which marks the spot where the blow was struck—and from this extends a series of ripples, producing a surface like that of a shell, from which this mode of breaking is called conchoidal fracture. Often, by further chipping the flake itself is worked into an implement. Implements have also been made of chert, but it is far more difficult to work, as it naturally breaks in an irregular way into sharp angular fragments. Flint, on the other hand, lent itself admirably to the use of early man, who in time acquired a perfect mastery of the material. The working of flints is so characteristic that, once accustomed to them, you cannot mistake a good specimen. Sea waves dashing pebbles about will sometimes produce a conchoidal fracture, but never a series of fractures in the methodical way in which a flint was worked by man. And, of course, specimens may be found so worn that it is difficult to be sure about their nature. Again early man may, especially in very early times, have been content to use a sharp stone almost as he found it, with only the slightest amount of knocking it into shape. So that in such a case it will be very difficult to decide whether the stones have formed the implements of man or not. In later times men learnt to polish their implements, and made polished stone axes like those the New Zealanders and South Sea Islanders used to make in modern times. The old age of chipped or flaked implements is called the Palæolithic; the later age when they were ground or polished the Neolithic. (Simple implements, as knives and scrapers, were still unpolished.) The history of early man is a long story in itself, and of intense interest. But we must not leave our geological story unfinished by leaving out the culmination of it all in man. In the higher gravels—the Plateau Gravels—no remains of man are found; but in the lower—the Valley Gravels,—of the South of England is found abundant evidence of the presence of man. Large numbers of flint implements have been collected from the Thames valley and over the whole area of the rivers which have gravel terraces along their course. Over a large sheet of gravel at Southampton, whenever a large gravel pit is dug, implements are found at the base of the gravel.[17] The occurrence of the mammoth and other arctic creatures in the gravels shows that in the Glacial Period man was contemporary with these animals. Remains in caves tell the same story. In limestone caverns in Devon, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, implements made by man are found in company with remains of the cave bear, cave hyæna, lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and other animals either extinct or no longer inhabitants of this country—remains which have been preserved under floors of stalagmite deposited in the caves. In caves of central France men have left carvings on bone and ivory, representing the wild animals of that day—carvings which show a remarkable artistic sense, and a keen observation of animal life. Among them is a drawing of the mammoth on a piece of mammoth ivory, showing admirably the appearance of the animal, with his long hair, as he has been found preserved in ice to the present day near the mouths of Siberian rivers. Drawings of the reindeer, true to life, are frequent.
Till recently very few Palæolithic implements had been recorded as found in the Isle of Wight. In the Memoir of the Geological Survey (1889) only one such is recorded, found in a patch of brick earth near Howgate Farm, Bembridge.[18] A few more implements, which almost certainly came from this brick-earth, have been found on the shore since. In recent years a large number of Palæolithic implements have been found at Priory Bay near St. Helen's. They were first observed on the beach by Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., in 1886, and were traced to their source in the gravel in the cliff by Miss Moseley in 1902. From that time, and especially from 1904 onwards, many have been found by Prof. Poulton, by R. W. Poulton (and others). Up to 1909 about 150 implements had been found, and there have been more finds since.[19]
The most important finds, besides those at Priory Bay, have been those of Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren at Freshwater, especially in trial borings in loam and clay below the surface soil in a depression of the High Downs, south of Headon Hill, at a level of about 360 ft. O.D., in which a number of Palæolithic tools, flakes, and cores were found[20]. Isolated implements have been found in recent years in various localities in the Island. There are references to finds of implements at different times in the past, but the descriptions are generally too vague to conclude certainly to what date they belong. Much of the gravel used in the Island comes from the angular gravel on St. Boniface Down, or the high Plateau Gravel of St. George's Down; but in the lower gravels and associated brick earth, it is highly probable that more remains of Palæolithic man will yet be found in the Island, and quite possible that such have been found in the past, but for want of accurate descriptions of the circumstances of the finds are lost to us.
We must pass on to the men of the Neolithic or later stone age. The Palæolithic age was of very great duration, much longer than all succeeding human history. Between Palæolithic and Neolithic times there is in England a large gap. In France various stages have been traced showing a continual advance in culture. In England little, if anything, has been found belonging to the intermediate stages. Such remains may yet be found in caves, or in lower river gravels, now buried below the alluvium. The gap between Palæolithic and Neolithic is marked by the great amount of river erosion which took place in the interval. Palæolithic implements are found in gravels formed when the rivers flowed some 100 feet above their present courses. Take, e.g., the Itchen at Southampton. After the 100 foot gravels were deposited the river cut down, not merely to its present level, but to an old bed now covered up by various deposits beneath the river. After cutting down to that bed the river laid down gravels upon it; and then—the land standing at a higher level than to-day—the river valley and the [surrounding] country were covered by a forest, which, as the climate altered and became damper, was succeeded by the formation of peat. The land has since sunk, and the peat, in parts 17 ft. thick, is now found under Southampton Water, covered by estuarine silt. The Empress Dock at Southampton was dug where a mud bank was exposed at low water. The mud bank was formed of river silt 12 to 17 feet thick. Below this was the peat, resting on gravel. On the gravel horns of reindeer were found. In the peat were large horn cores of the great extinct ox, Bos primigenius, also horns of red deer, and also in the peat were found neolithic flint chips, a circular stone hammer head, with a hole bored through for a wooden handle, and a large needle made of horn. Here, at a great interval of time after Palæolithic man, as we see by the history of the river we have just traced, we come to the new race of men, the Neolithic.
When Neolithic man appeared the land stood higher than at present, though not so high as during great part of the Pleistocene. Britain was divided from the Continent, but the shores were a good way out into what is now sea round the coasts, and forests clothed these further shores. Remains of these, known as submerged forest, are found below the tide mark round many parts of our coast. Peat as at Southampton Docks, is found under the estuarine mud off Netley. The wells at the Spithead Forts show an old land surface with peat more than 50 feet below the tide level. The old bed of the Solent river lies much lower still—124 feet below high tide at Noman's Land Fort; this channel was probably an estuary after the subsidence of the land till it silted up with marine deposits to the level on which the submerged forest grew.