Feb., 1912. Jade. 69 



knives. The statement of the same tenor made by Grosier (De- 

 scription generate de la Chine, Vol. I, p. 191, Paris, 18 18) seems to go 

 back to that source. 1 There is, in my opinion, not the faintest reason 

 to connect these modern manufactures with the idea of a stone age 

 or even to consider them as survivals; they are merely the outcome of 

 chance and convenience. Hundreds of utensils are turned out of stone 

 by the Chinese, so that there is no wonder that occasionally and sporad- 

 ically also a knife or a hatchet is listed among these objects, when a 

 suitable material offers. 



After having surveyed the existing material and the records of the 

 Chinese, it may be well to go back to the assertion which several authors 

 have made in regard to a stone age of China, some very positively, 

 others more guardedly by merely pointing to the possibility of this 

 case. In view of the scanty material before them, there is certainly 

 occasion to admire the courage of such writers. As early as 1870, 

 Edward T. Stevens (Flint Chips, p. 116) who knew of just one stone 

 adze from China exhibited in the Christy Collection, London, wrote: 

 "St. Julien has extracted passages from different Chinese works which 

 prove the existence of a stone age in China. Not only are arrow-heads 

 and hatchets of stone noticed, but also agricultural implements made 

 of the same material." Julien can hardly be made responsible for 

 these notes which consist of four brief and incomplete references; they 

 were communicated by him to Chevreul who published them under 

 the title "Note historique sur l'age de pierre a la Chine" (Comptes 

 rendus de V Academie des Sciences, Vol. LXIII, pp. 281-285, Paris, 

 1866). But as one swallow does not make a summer, one stone adze 

 does not yet go to make a stone age, and four literary allusions of 

 recent date do not help much to support it. 



R. Andree (Die Metalle bei den Naturvolkern, p. 103, Leipzig, 

 1884) says: "However early and highly developed the knowledge of 

 metals appears among the Chinese, yet this people does not make an 

 exception and has had like all other peoples a stone period; it even 

 seems that in some provinces stone implements were used in compara- 

 tively recent times." Andree justly calls attention to the aborigines 

 in the south and south-west among whom stone implements may have 

 been longest in use. 



Sir John Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, fifth ed., p. 3) is inclined 

 to assume that the use of iron was in China also preceded by bronze, 

 and bronze by stone; and M. Hoernes (Urgeschichte der Menschheit, 

 p. 92) strikes the same note by saying: "The remains of a stone age 



I The same author (Vol. I, p. 439) asserts: For the rest none of those ancient 

 cutting stones wrought to supplant the use of iron are found in China; at least, the 

 present literati have never heard of such. 



