

PREHISTORIC CLASSIFICATION 



By W. J. LEWIS ABBOTT, F.G.S., F.R.A.I. 



There can be no doubt of the justification of the classification 

 of the enthusiastic young prehistorian Lubbock, at the time 

 of its introduction. When Prestwich invited him over to see 

 the iron-stained weapons in the river-drift of the Somme, they 

 were so obviously different from the " bleached " whitened 

 cylindrical polished specimens found at or near the surface 

 in this country, with which he had become familiar ; and 

 moreover they were indisputably associated with the bones of 

 the extinct mammalia, in a gravel of great antiquity ; whereas 

 the polished bleached and fresh specimens were so closely 

 associated with the existing order of things, that it was obvious 

 the two were separated very widely from each other, in a 

 manner as immediately to suggest an " older " and a " newer "— 

 a palaeolithic and a neolithic age. Further, the great difference 

 between polished specimens of the surface and the more or 

 less rudely chipped ones of the drift suggested the terms 

 " polished " and " rough stone ages." But unfortunately the 

 words " palaeolithic " and " neolithic " were only extreme 

 terms ; palaeolithic was confined to the river-drift specimens, 

 and neolithic 1 was the equivalent of " polished " stone, but 

 was vaguely made to include all specimens found at the surface. 

 There was, however no " scientific frontier," between the two 

 states, and with closer observation the " no man's land " grew 

 into an ever-widening " buffer state." Soon everything 

 found at or near the surface — especially if it had suffered any 

 of these alterations which occur to flint on the surface of the 

 earth — came to be regarded as neolithic. With this practice 

 in operation, the hiatus became an impassable ocean, to bridge 

 which many attempts were made. As time went on it became 

 more and more apparent that archaeologically, geologically, 

 and palaeontologically the two were separated by a vast interval 



1 Prehistoric Times, 1872, p. 3. 

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