PREHISTORIC CLASSIFICATION 277 



implementiferous deposits on the plateaux ? Were they laid 

 down by consequent streams which formed down the newly 

 elevated Lenham-Diestian sea-bottom ? and were the imple- 

 ments found in them of contemporary age, or were the worked 

 flints surface-products of miocene times ? The fact that in the 

 deepest deposit that has been opened — the stanstedian — freshly 

 chipped specimens are found associated with very hard worn 

 ones, rather perhaps points to the possibility of the oldest 

 specimens dating to the close of the miocene age. I am, however, 

 inclined to regard the plateau worked flints as post Lenham- 

 Diestian. 1 



I would like to call special attention to several points raised 

 in the Proc. R.A.I., vol. xli. pp. 460-5. It is there shown, 

 firstly, that an orderly sequence of flint-working can be estab- 

 lished for the plateau worked flints. It is pointed out (p. 464) 

 that many important factors may supervene : inter alia that 

 implements of a given shape need not necessarily have had a 

 monogenitic origin, that evolution of forms need not have 

 followed on the same lines in different places, and that at 

 any particular time all men would not have been in the same 

 manipulative stage. If these factors did not hold good I fear 

 that we should have to place the three older groups of the 

 plateaux below those of the sub-Crag. 



In the same paper {op. cit.) a nomenclature for the various 

 forms of flint-working is suggested. They are a lot of more or 

 less ugly, loud-sounding words, but I submit they will improve 

 upon acquaintance, and to every student who has taken up the 

 science of lithoclasiology they are indispensable : a glance 

 at these distinctive features in a system of classification should 

 convince one of their diagnostic value. Of course, when one 

 speaks of " the age of mammals " or " the age of reptiles " one 

 does not mean that every animal was a mammal in one case 

 and a reptile in the other, but that they were the distinctive 

 features of the respective ages ; and similarly these various 

 classes of methods of working are the distinctive features of 

 the various ages, and as such have a high classificatory value. 



Up to this point we have not touched upon the palaeonto- 

 logical side of the question ; to this we will now turn. Quite 

 early in the study of prehistoric man the famous Neanderthal 

 skull was brought to light. Unfortunately its exact horizon was 



1 " Pliocene Dep." op, cit. 



