| Description | Palaeolithic flints, described as `knives' by Walker; apparently found at Lake Lock in March 1892. Precise find spot is unknown. Walker illustrates 3 of them. The three grey patinated flints are held by Wakefield Museum; two are blades, the third is a graver spall. The Museum also holds three other Palaeolithic blades of amber coloured flint which are labelled as having come from Lake Lock, and it is possible that these are from another collection (pers.comm.P.Judkins, Wakefield Museum); Walker implies that more than three flints were found, so some uncertainty remains about whether the three additional blades held by Wakefield Museum are in fact also from Lake Lock.Plotted at site of Lake Lock as shown on 1st.ed. 6 inch O.S. map. These finds (together with other Palaeolithic material found nearby; PRN's 3813, 3814) are important in that they represent only a handful of Palaeolithic material from West Yorkshire. There is very little tangible evidence to prove that West Yorkshire was inhabited in the Palaeolithic period; drawing a maximum limit for the Devensian glaciation is difficult in this region. However, the Calder valley was ice free, except for a tongueof Airedale ice which overflowed in to the head of the Spen valley to Oakenshaw (Keighley 1981, p.75). Thus, this Palaeolithic material comes from one of the few areas in which it could be expected in West Yorkshire. |