EVIDENXIiS OF PREHISTORIC MAN IN WEST KENT. 333 



This suggestion is strengthened by the occurrence of EoHthicand 

 Palaeolithic types in close association. This association of types 

 has already served as evidence against the authenticity and not 

 the antiquity of Eoliths. 



Professor Boyd-Dawkins {Journal of Anthropological Institute, 

 April, 1903), in reviewing the Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone 

 Age, issued by the Trustees of the British Museum last year, 

 maintained that because the types are found in association they 

 are necessarily of the same period, the conclusion naturally 

 arrived at being that Eoliths do not represent any outlay of man's 

 handiwork. It is possible to view the association of type from a 

 different standpoint. The passage referred to is as follows ; — 

 •' The question therefore as^to whether the Eoliths are natural 

 flints used by man or artificially made tools, is of no special 

 importance, because Palaeolithic man, the maker of advanced 

 implements, was then in the land and would certainly have used 

 primitive types if they suited his purpose." Now the ground on 

 which the objection is placed is that in the Prestwick Collection 

 there are three specimens labelled " Palaeolithic implements 

 found with plateau gravel specimens, Shoreham, Kent." It is 

 possible, liowever, that the occurrence of the two types in 

 association neither detracts from the age of the Eoliths nor 

 increases the antiquity assignable to the Palaeoliths as both 

 may have been under the influence of river action, with the 

 difference that the Eoliths constituted a part of the area to be 

 denuded, whilst the Palaeoliths were made during and after the 

 break-up of the Eolithic gravels. It is difficult to decide the 

 earliest date of any of the constituent materials of a river gravel, 

 as the deposit is collected from various areas of widely divergent 

 ages ; it seems more reasonable to look on the deposit as 

 illustrating only the latest period to which a river carried its 

 denuding action. 



If plateau evidence is required, then we must go to the 

 plateau gravels, and when Eoliths and Palaeoliths are there 

 found in close association in the plateau drift, it may perhaps be 

 necessary to revise the (jlaim for the greater antiquity of Eoliths. 

 I do not think it requires one of the greater prophets to foretell 

 the unlikelihood of such a revision. 



If the claim for contemporaneity of type should be sub- 

 stantiated, it will still be necessary to explain away the evidence 



