Prehistoric archaeology owed a special debt to Suffolk since it was at Hoxne during the 1790s that John Frere recognised humanly-worked flints together with the remains of extinct animals, and the general realisation of the greater antiquity of humankind first began. The Prehistoric Society of East Anglia was created in 1908, centred at Norwich and Ipswich Museums, then the only Society dedicated specifically to this study. Interest developed strongly at Ipswich. The Ipswich investigator James Reid Moir became very active in all the Suffolk county societies and in the Museum, encouraged by his mentor Sir Ray Lankester, who was Museum President 1901–29.