PRE-PALAEOLITHIC MAN IN ENGLAND 473 



tinct from the technique of the makers of the normal palaeo- 

 lithic implements. The ill-defined cones of percussion, and 

 rough heavily truncated flake-areas of the Piltdown specimens, 

 stamp them indelibly as the work of pre-palaeolithic man, and 

 further that their makers lived a long way back in the pre- 

 palaeolithic epoch. 



I have found such specimens as these below the Pliocene 

 Red Crag, and would refer the reader to an illustration in one 

 of my published papers which testifies to the truth of this 

 statement. 1 But when it is realised that these particular flint 

 implements, which as I have shown pre-Crag man was capable 

 of making, are the latest found in the Piltdown Gravel, and 

 that they occurred in a stratum less ancient than that contain- 

 ing the human bones, it will be seen that we are dealing with 

 the remains of a person who in all probability existed at a 

 period the remoteness of which makes the palaeolithic epoch 

 seem comparatively modern. For the only implements found 

 in the " human " stratum and in intimate association with 

 the Piltdown individual were the primitive edge-trimmed 

 flints generally described as eoliths. 8 This particular type of 

 implement represents, as I have shown in a former article in 

 Science Progress, 5 the earliest efforts of man deliberately to 

 shape flints to his needs. I have also shown in the same 

 publication 4 that there is very good reason to believe that 

 these " eolithic " implements were the precursors of the rostro- 

 carinate form found in the sub-Crag detritus-bed. Thus it 

 would appear probable that the human remains from the 

 Piltdown gravel must be referred to a member of the early 

 pre-palaeolithic period — and Piltdown is not in Asia. 



There seems to me to be no escape from these conclusions. 

 All I ask is that the antiquity of the Piltdown remains may 

 be computed in the same way as the age of all other ancient 

 human bones. In the case of the Neanderthal and other 

 Pleistocene skeletons which have been found, their antiquity 

 has„been decided upon by reference to the geological strata in 

 which they lay, and the fauna and flint implements with which 

 they were associated. 



1 Proc. Prekis. Soc. of East Anglia, vol. ii. part i, Plate VIII. fig. B. 



2 Q.J.G.S. April 1914, vol. Ixx. pp. 84 and 85, also Plate XIV. 

 5 No. 43, January 1917, pp. 431-40. 



4 No - 45i Juty 19!7, PP. 83-96. 



3i 



