Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/190

 A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE Palaeolithic flakes and mammalian remains have also been discovered at Round Green and Ramridge End one mile north-east of Luton. Other localities are Houghton Regis one mile north of Dunstable, Stanbridge Ford two miles west of Dunstable, near Sewell and near the source of the Ver at Markyate Street at the extreme south of the county. The more remarkable discoveries are those made by the writer in the brick-earth and contorted drift on the hilltops south of the county, chiefly at and near Caddington, between Dunstable and Luton. The gravel pits at Bedford, in which palaeolithic implements and the bones of Pleistocene mammalia occur, rest on Oxford Clay and the Corn- brash, the upper portion of the Lower Oolite. Resting on the Oxford Clay and capping the adjoining hills is the Upper Chalky Boulder Clay. The valley has been excavated through the Boulder Clay and Oxford Clay, and the implement-bearing gravel contains materials derived from these deposits. No palaeolithic implements occur in the two clays, and it is obvious that the deposits in the valley are later in age than the deposits on the hills which have been cut through and exposed in section on the hillsides. The valley gravel near Bedford is about 13 feet thick. It consists of subangular flints, yellow, ochreous and brown in colour ; oolitic debris ; pebbles of quartz and sandstone ; new red sandstone conglomerates, and other old rocks derived from the Boulder Clay or other glacial deposits. Its fluviatile character is shown by the numerous shells of land and fresh- water mollusca. Two implements from the Bedford gravels are illustrated in figs. 2 Fig. 3. and 3. A third, made from a large natural flake of flint, is shown in fig 4. One side of this implement, shown on the right, is plain, and, with the exception of one or two human touches, it is natural and covered with glacial striae. No striae occur on the portions worked by human 146