Part 7

BIRDS.

We have paid much attention to the birds of the Fens, partly because of the occurrence of some unexpected species, and also because of the absence, so far as our collection goes, of species of which we should expect to find large numbers.

Perhaps the most interesting are the remains of Pelican (P. crispus or onocrotalus). Of this we have two bones, not associated nor in the same state of preservation. The determination we have on the authority of Alphonse Milne Edwards and Professor Alfred Newton. One of the bones is that of a bird so young that it cannot have flown over but shows that it must have been hatched or carried here.

Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Zool. (5), Vol. VIII, Pl. 14, pp. 285-293. Ibis, 1868, pp. 363-370, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1868, p. 2. Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Soc. Vol. VII, Pt. 2, 1901. Geol. Mag. No. 447, N.S. Dec. 4, Vol. VIII, No. 9, p. 422.

Of the Crane (Grus cinerea) we have a great number of bones but of the common Heron not one. I have placed a recent skeleton of heron in the case to help us to look out for and determine any that may turn up. Bones of the Bittern (Botaurus or Ardea stellaris) are quite common, as are those of the Mute or tame Swan (Cygnus olor) as well as of the Hooper or wild Swan (Cygnus musicus or ferus). Goose (Anser) and Duck (Anas) are not so numerous as one might have expected. The Grey Goose (Anser ferus) and the Mallard (Anas boscas) are the most common, but other species are found, as for instance Anas grecca. We have also the Red Breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator), and the Smew (Mergus albellus), the Razor Bill (Alea tarda), the Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), the Water Hen (Gallinula chloropus) and a few bones of a Limicoline bird, most likely a lapwing. We have found the skull, but no more, of the White-tailed or Sea Eagle (Haliaetus albicilla). The whole is a strangely small collection considering all the circumstances.

We find in the Fens of course everything of later date, down to the drowned animals of last winter's storm, or the stranded pike left when the flood went down. It is a curious fact and very like instinct at fault that in floods the pike wander into shallow water and linger in the hollows till too late to get back to the river, so that large numbers of them are found dead when the water has soaked in or evaporated. An old man told me that he well remembered when pike were more abundant they used to dig holes along the margin when the flood was rising and when it went down commonly found several fine pike in them. This explains why we so often find the bones of pike in the peat, but where did the pike get into a habit so little conducive to the survival of the species?

Although we notice at the present day a constant change in the mollusca, their general continuity throughout the long ages from pre-glacial times is a very remarkable fact.

The presence of Corbicula fluminalis and Unio littoralis in the Gravels characterized by the cold-climate group of mammals such as Rhinoceros tichorhinus and Elephas primigenius, the absence of those shells from the deposits in which Rh. merckii and E. antiquus are the representative forms, and their existence now only in more southern latitudes, as France, Sicily or the Nile, but not in our Turbiferous Series, lay before us a series of apparent inconsistencies not easy of explanation.

MAN.

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.

b +-----+ / \ [Greek: ph] --------------/ \-------------- c ···d / \ d´··· c / \ + -----------/ a \----------- e / \ e´ ---------+-------------------+---------

a. Kimmeridge Clay forming Shippea Hill, on which monastic buildings in connection with Ely Cathedral formerly stood.

b. Patches of rusty flint gravel.

c. Peat with bones of beaver, boar, urus, etc.

d. Shell Marl, occurring in lenticular beds of limited extent in the upper part of the peat, sometimes in one bed as at d and sometimes in several distinct beds as at d´.

e. "Buttery Clay"; full of cockleshells etc. at e, but at e´ containing only freshwater shells and pieces of wood.

+ Position of skeleton.

Some of the bones were broken and much decayed, while others, when carefully extracted, dried and helped out with a little thin glue, became very sound and showed by the surface markings that they had suffered only from the moisture and not from any wear in transport.

The most interesting point about them is the protuberant brow, which, when first seen on the detached frontal bone, before the skull had been restored, suggested comparison with that of the Neanderthal man.

Much greater importance was attached to that character when the Neanderthal skull was found.