1897- PLIOCENE FLINT-FLAKES IN BURMA. 241 



The lenticular conglomerate looked like a heap of shingle, and 

 when taking out the bone, I noticed at once that the articular ends 

 were polished in a remarkable way. It looked exactly as if it had 

 been rubbed with force at both ends on a hard stone. If I remember 

 rightly, at one end the condyle was rubbed off for about one-third of 

 its width, and there were several facets. Otherwise the bone was well 

 preserved. It was lying, as shown in Fig. 3, with the ground surfaces 

 resting on the underlying sandstone ; the dotted lines in the figure 

 represent the parts rubbed off. The sketch is purely diagrammatic ; 

 but the bone will eventually be properly described and figured. Only 

 two processes which could have produced such facets, can be imagined : 

 glacial action, or human agency. This, however, can hardly be 

 accepted as proof of glacial action in Burma during Pliocene times, 

 and there remains only the one alternative. While forced to present 

 the evidence in this incomplete fashion, I would not lay too much 

 stress on it ; but I am led to mention it, since in the Neues Jahrbnch fiiv 

 Mineralogie for i8g6 (vol. i., p. 224) Professor Dames has described 



Fig. 3. — Section showing Worn Bone, in situ. 

 s, sandstone ; c, conglomerate ; b, bone. 



the shoulder-blade of a diluvial horse, exhibiting similar loss of 

 substance at the upper end, and has unhesitatingly attributed this to 

 human agency. 



To sum up : in the neighbourhood of Yenangyoung curiously 

 shaped flint-flakes, the shape of which it is difficult to explain by any 

 other than human agency, were found at two localities in beds of 

 Lower Pliocene age. It is absolutely certain that they were in situ 

 when found at one locality and more than probable that they were so 

 at the second. If their shape is attributed to human agency, additional 

 evidence for this theory is afforded by a remarkably polished femur or 

 humerus, found in the same beds. 



Fritz Noetling. 



