452 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



were almost certainly the outcome of an orderly progress in 

 flint-implement making. This evidence takes the form of 

 definite flint implements which can be seen and handled, and 

 which by no stretch of imagination can be described as " un- 

 chipped stones," or " crudities " of any sort or kind. 



On p. 27 of his book the Professor states that " there are 

 scores of ways of chipping a stone implement," by which, as 

 one does not chip an " implement," I suppose he means that 

 there are scores of ways in which a stone may be chipped in 

 producing an implement from it. I had no idea that there were 

 so many ways of "chipping" a stone, and Prof. Elliot Smith 

 would be doing a service to science in describing each method 

 in detail. Then again in the footnote to p. 27 I notice it is 

 stated that "it is at least as simple, if not definitely easier, to 

 shape an implement by rubbing and polishing " as by flaking. 

 I regret to say, however, that my experience with flints is 

 dead against any such conclusion, but perhaps the Professor 

 has by experiment proved the truth of his contention. 



On p. 18 we are told that " the great cultural 'break in 

 Western Europe itself (and even in its flint work) did not fall 

 between the so-called Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages, but 

 between the Lower and Upper Palaeolithic periods," and again 

 that " there is a much closer kinship between the flint-work 

 of the so-called Upper Palaeolithic and the Neolithic ages than 

 there is between the former and that of the Lower Palaeolithic 

 period." Here once more I find myself in opposition to Prof. 

 Elliot Smith. If there was any " break " in the manner of 

 flaking flints in the past it certainly occurred at the end of 

 Acheulean times, as the technique of this period is funda- 

 mentally different from that of the succeeding Mousterian 

 phase. The angle at which Mousterian man delivered his blows 

 upon the flint he was shaping was quite different from that 

 which the Acheuleans favoured, as is clear when a series of the 

 two types of implements is examined. And there are other well- 

 marked differences between the technique of the Acheulean and 

 Mousterian craftsmen. 



Again, I think that there can be no doubt the forms of the 

 implements of Upper Mousterian times merge gradually into 

 those of the Lower Aurignacian. 



These are some of the principal points upon which I disagree 

 with Prof. Elliot Smith, and I am of opinion that had he made 



