James Reid Moir

James Reid Moir (1879-1944) was an archaeologist and historian from Ipswich, he was also President of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.
Discoveries
Moir was most well known for his controversial discoveries of ancient artefacts. Because of his discoveries Moir concluded that man existed in the Pliocene age, tens of thousands of years earlier than supposed by science.
Red and Norwich Crags
In 1909, Moir found some crude flints near his house in Ipswich at the brickfield of Messrs Bolton and Laughlin. The flints were found in an eroded bed of Red Crag Formation. Moir described the flints as eoliths, he was convinced that he had discovered evidence for very early human activity in Britain. He further found more flints in the same area and other artefacts in other parts of Ipswich, he was convinced that the flints predate the last glaciation due to the marking on the flints, he later came to the conclusion that they had been carved during an early Pliocene glaciation, long before ice-sheets from the Glacial period had formed. There was a long debate over the age of the flints and what the flints had to say about human evolution, Ray Lankester was supportive of Moir and the flints, others were sceptical about the dating methods of the flints.
Human antiquity in Britain
Moir published a book titled The Antiquity of Man in East Anglia in 1927. In the book he claimed there had been humans 500,000 years before Christ living in Britain. He listed other discoveries in the book which he claimed he had found in East Anglia pushing back humans in ancient antiquity by millions of years, he also claimed a wind-shelter which was discovered in Ipswich was the oldest habitation of humans in Britain.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu