1897] PRIMEVAL REFUSE HEAPS AT HASTINGS 41 



There is, however, no reason why the people who left these 

 mounds of refuse should not have proceeded inland, and there 

 formed settlements ; but under these conditions the relics left 

 behind would necessarily be of a very different nature. Certainly 

 they would not consist largely of shells as does the Midden 

 material near the sea-shore. If we found a similar set of animal 

 remains in the Middens and in inland settlements, it would be 

 something to indicate that both deposits might have been geologi- 

 cally contemporaneous. But this evidence would be by no means 

 conclusive, as the people inland, in the absence of a plentiful 

 supply of fish, might have been driven to the chase, and thus have 

 captured a large number of animals which eluded the skill of the 

 fisherman, remains of which would be present among the relics of 

 the former but not among the latter. Then again, the landsmen 

 would naturally be first to practise any kind of domestication of 

 animals for the purpose of food and clothing, and would doubtless 

 adopt this custom long before the fishermen annexed it to supple- 

 ment their method of obtaining sustenance. It will thus be seen 

 that, although a given set of animal remains might enable us to 

 fix approximately the geological ' age ' of the deposits, their 

 presence or absence would not be sufficient evidence to enable 

 us to correlate deposits found upon the sea-shore with those 

 occurring mid-land. Unfortunately the appearance and disappear- 

 ance of animals associated with man are not so clearly indicated 

 by our time charts, as at present constructed, as they ought to be ; 

 so that the fossils of man's mental evolution over a given locality 

 — namely, the exhibitions of skill in the production and fabrication 

 of articles to obtain the necessaries of life, and make it more 

 endurable, or gratify his desires — must serve as the figures upon 

 our chronograph. If, for example, all implements found in these 

 deposits were of the well-known Palaeolithic types, we should not 

 hesitate in classing the Middens as Pleistocene. If there were a 

 profusion of beautifully polished axes and barbed arrow heads, we 

 should assign them to the ordinary Neolithic men ; and if only 

 a single bronze implement were found, we should just as readily 

 relegate them to the age of metal. So also if we find a certain 

 set of relics differing from anything else previously recognised, 

 although they may tell us little of the actual age of the deposit, 

 yet they may prove invaluable in correlating the age of identical 

 objects found over a large extent of country, and justify our assign- 

 ing them to one race of people : and if from each of the localities 

 in which these are found we obtain supplementary evidence, we 

 may at last obtain a most comprehensive and reliable account of 

 the heretofore unknown people. 



Judged by this standard, I do not at present see anything to 



