Foreign Relations in the Neolithic Period

1919 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Text Book ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Boulder Clay ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Free Area

In discussing the points of contact between Neolithic Britain and the Continent, it is desirable from many points of view to begin at the beginning, and to conclude with the introduction of metal. I prefer this to the method adopted in our leading text-book, even though it brings us at once into an area of conflict, where nothing should be taken for granted, and general agreement is not yet in sight. In Scandinavia there seems to be a definite terminus a quo, though even there some elements of doubt can be detected. It is generally assumed that human life began in the peninsula soon after the last or Baltic glaciation came to an end; and the first question is whether the same holds good for Britain, and if so, to what extent, for an ice-free area in the south of England is recognised by most authorities even during the severe glaciation that accounted for boulder-clay at Finchley, only three miles north of the Thames.As will be seen later, intercourse with Scandinavia was lively during two phases of the Megalithic period, but there is nothing to shew that the Neolithic civilisations east and west of the North Sea had a common origin or began at the same date.

scholarly journals III.—On the Structure of the Valleys of the Blackwater and the Crough, and of the East Essex Gravel, and on the Relation of this Gravel to the Denudation of the Weald

1866 ◽  
Vol 3 (26) ◽  
pp. 348-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Searles V. Wood
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Glacial Period ◽  
The South ◽  
Northern Boundary ◽  
The North ◽  
Complete Order ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Boulder Clay ◽  
London Clay

In a paper in this Magazine, upon the structure of the Thames Valley, I endeavoured to show that instead of being, as had been asserted, a valley of similar structure to those of the Somme and Seine, and containing deposits of nearly similar order and age, the valley in which the Thames gravel was deposited possessed no outlet to what is now the North Sea, being divided from it by a range of high gravelless country; and that, in lieu of such an outlet, the valley opened, in more than one part, over what is now the bare Chalk country forming the northern boundary of the Valley of the Weald. I also endeavoured to show that all the deposits of the Thames Valley, except the peat and marsh clay, belonged to several successive stages, marking the gradual denudation of the Boulderclay, the lower Bagshot, the London Clay, and the subjacent Tertiaries, which had, at the end of the Glacial period, spread over the south-east of England in a complete order of succession: the sea into which this valley discharged occupying, what is now, the Chalk country of the Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, inclusive of the interval subsequently scooped out to form the Valley of the Weald: so that, not only was the latter valley newer than that of the Thames, and of the most recent of the Thames Valley deposits, except the peat and marsh clay, but that these deposits in themselves marked a long descent in time from that comparatively remote period of the Boulder-clay.

Detrital zircon U-Pb ages reveal ice sheet and North Sea drainage driven dust source variability recorded in late Quaternary loess deposits at Pegwell Bay, SE England

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunus Baykal ◽  
Thomas Stevens ◽  
Daniele Sechi ◽  
Giulia Cossu ◽  
Stefano Andreucci ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Detrital Zircon ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Dust Deposition ◽  
Dust Source ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Single Grain ◽  
Loess Deposits ◽  
Two Phases

<p>Loess deposits are the most widespread terrestrial archive of past climate and environmental change. While several tens of metres thick loess-palaeosol sequences in central and eastern Europe record multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, substantially thinner deposits along the English Channel in north-western Europe may provide valuable “snapshots” of abrupt climatic and environmental changes in areas proximal to the North Atlantic. Recently, high-resolution luminescence dating of loess deposits at Pegwell Bay, SE England has enabled constraint of the timing of dust fall over south-east England to 25-19 ka when the British-Irish and Fennoscandian Ice sheets had coalesced and the associated strengthened high pressure system favoured dust entrainment from the exposed southern North Sea basin. Two phases of greatly enhanced dust deposition at the site are centred around 25-23.5 ka and 20-19 ka, contemporaneous with changes in North Sea ice sheet extent and ice dammed lake drainage. Such changes may have triggered abrupt flood events that would have greatly enhanced sediment supply potentially overriding the input from other sediment sources, e.g. major rivers like the Rhine. However, while the temporal link between ice sheet and dust dynamics is striking, this possibility remains untested due to lack of sufficiently source diagnostic provenance analyses of loess along the North Sea and Channel coasts. The use of single grain detrital zircon U-Pb age assemblages can discriminate different sources to loess in suitable settings. Given the geochronological heterogeneity of terranes that account for sediment input into the North Sea basin during the late last glacial ranging from Baltica in the east, Cadomia-Armorica in the south and Laurentia-Ganderia-Meguma-Avalonia in the north and west, detrital zircon ages have great promise to link changes in North Sea drainage with dust source activity. As such, high n detrital zircon age assemblages have here been analysed from two samples of loess deposited at Pegwell Bay during the two phases of enhanced dust deposition. Preliminary results indicate that glacifluvial sediments derived from both Scandinavia and Britain combined with input from major rivers draining central and western continental Europe act as dust source during the first phase while glacifluvial sediments from Britain dominate during the second phase linked to the final abrupt decay of the North Sea ice lobe. These findings based on single grain detrital zircon data alone highlight the method’s potential to detect abrupt dust source variability in a favourable scenario of heterogenous source terranes. They also emphasise the importance of abrupt changes in ice sheets and their drainage in controlling wider-scale, rapid and substantial changes in atmospheric dust emission in higher latitudes, and by extension possible subsequent climatic and environmental effects.</p>

scholarly journals Our Neighbours in the Neolithic Period Presidential Address

1918 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Early Date ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Shell Mounds ◽  
The North Sea

It may seem a paradox, but it is nevertheless true, that more is known of the remote Palæolithic period than of the later Stone Age that ended about 4000 years ago. This applies to the Continent as well as to Britain, but Scandinavia is exceptional, and for our present purpose the best subject of investigation. The accepted view is that the three Baltic kingdoms were uninhabited in Quaternary times, and could only be approached by man after the last, or Baltic, glaciation had come to an end. There are certain facts inexplicable on that hypothesis, but all will agree that the Neolithic period in that area can be divided into early and late divisions; and so rich are the prehistoric remains and so advanced is this study, that the Scandinavian system can be used as a touch-stone by which to test the facts and theories of our own later Stone Age. I propose, therefore, on the present occasion to deal in some detail with the latest results of Scandinavian research, and then to proceed in order with the districts that face us across the North Sea and the Channel—North-west Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. It is hoped that such a survey will enable a more rigid classification to be made of the large amount of British material referred to the Neolithic period. In this country one has to rely mainly on form, but in Scandinavia that element is combined with others, such as habitation-sites, shell-mounds, and megalithic remains that furnish proof of the succession of forms, and open up the question of relations with Britain at that early date. If the claims already made on that head be valid, then comparisons become possible, and certain stages at least of the period in question can be arranged on scientific lines.

scholarly journals VI.—The Boulder-clay of Caithness a Product of Land-ice

1870 ◽  
Vol 7 (72) ◽  
pp. 271-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Croll
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Polar Ice ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Boulder Clay ◽  
Break Up ◽  
Do So

We must consider that the ice from Scotland and England was but a fraction of that which entered the North Sea. The greater part of the ice of Scandinavia must have gone into this sea, and if the ice of our island could not find water sufficiently deep in which to float, far less would the much thicker ice of Scandinavia do so. The Scandinavian ice, before it could break up, would thus, like the Scottish ice, have to cross the bed of the North Sea and pass into the Atlantic. It could not pass to the north, nor to the north-west, for the ocean in these directions would be blocked up by the Polar ice.

Implements from the Glacial Deposits of North Norfolk

1920 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-205
Author(s):  
J. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Terminal Moraine ◽  
Glacial Origin ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Boulder Clay

I discovered my first flint implement, a very fine Neolithic axe, in Gresham, in the year 1883, and this find led me to investigate the neighbourhood for other specimens. I was successful in finding many Neolithic implements of various kinds, which have from time to time been exhibited at the meetings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.Shortly after my first finds, I commenced searching the gravels in the parish for “river drift” implements, but with very little success, as I soon found out that the gravel was of glacial origin, and the sandy surface of most of the district around was also glacial.The high ground to the north of Gresham consists of what is now fairly well known as the “Cromer-Holt ridge,” and is considered by Mr. F. W. Harmer, F.G.S., to be the terminal moraine of the North Sea ice sheet, built up while the glacier remained stationary for a long period, on its northward retreat. The numerous small valleys were formed by waters from the melting ice while the glacier was in its stationary stage, and may also have been influenced by the later glacier which deposited the chalky boulder clay.

The Mineral Composition of the Modern Fenland Silt, with special reference to Carbonate Minerals

1920 ◽  
Vol 57 (12) ◽  
pp. 543-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Analysis ◽  
Mineral Composition ◽  
Mineral Assemblage ◽  
Sea Water ◽  
Mineralogical Composition ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Recent Origin ◽  
Boulder Clay ◽  
Sea Currents

SUMMARY1. A sample of modern Fenland silt containing 8·98 per cent of carbonate was found on minaralogical examination to include dolomite as well as aragonite in its mineral assemblage.2. The dolomite is present in fresh angular crystal grains which suggest a secondary and recent origin of the mineral. It has possibly been deposited from sea-water which periodically covers the foreshore of the Fenland border of the Wash.3. The general mineral composition of the silt resembles closely that of certain geologically recent deposits of Cambridgeshire, and points to the boulder-clay left by the North Sea glacier as the chief source of the material of which the silt is composed. The silt has mainly been deposited by sea-currents which carry southwards the eroded glacial deposits of the South Yorkshire and North Licoln-shire coasts.4. An attempt is made to interpret the results of a chemical analysis of the silt in the light of its mineralogical composition, chiefly with regard to carbonate, potash, and phosphate. Muscovite, is found to be the main source of potash, and apatite of phosphate in the silt.

A Comparison of the Pleistocene of East Anglia with that of Germany

1937 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 136-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich E. Zeuner
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Boulder Clay

For many years, Professor P. G. H. Boswell has studied the Pleistocene deposits of East Anglia and, from time to time, published most illuminating reviews summarising the progress of work and discussing the possible relations to the corresponding deposits of other districts (especially 1931, 1932, 1936). In his Presidential Address to the Prehistoric Society last year, he paid particular attention to a problem which has often been attacked but not yet solved satisfactorily, namely the correlation of East Anglia with the Continent; and he suggested, as a possible way out of the difficulties, the correlation of the Hunstanton Boulder Clay with Würm 2, the Upper Chalky Drift with Würm 1, the Great Chalky Boulder Clay with Riss, the North Sea Drift with Mindel, and the later Crag deposits containing a cold fauna, with Günz. He admitted, however, that such a correlation would ‘bring other difficulties in its train.’

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