DEPARTMENT OF PREHISTORIC ANTHROPOLOGY. 331 



until 1 know of none which has beeu productive of greater error in the 

 study of prehistoric civilization. Correct enough if applied to ;i whole 

 people or to a series of their arts and industries, but it has beeu distorted 

 by superficial investigators who apply it to a siugle object. These 

 investigators passing upon an implement, especially one of stone 

 and rude in construction, declare it to be of great antiquity, simply 

 because it is rude, and this without regard to the locality in which 

 it was found or the objects associated therewith. This has resulted in 

 the propagation of great errors in regard to ancient civilization. If 

 one wanted a common illustration of this error, let him consider tools of 

 different trades — say carpenters, blacksmiths, tinners — and compare 

 those used by workers in a complete establishment with those of a 

 country workman who did only rough work. 



I am impelled to make these observations in studying these two rude 

 stone axes received from Mr. Stone (Catalogue Nos. 139793, 139794). 

 Only one, the largest, is illustrated ; from it one can easily understand 

 what the smaller one is like. (Plate VII.) 



Now these implements were made with less work and in a shorter 

 time than probably any other. They are of the extremest type of sim- 

 plicity and rudeness, and yet they are probably the. most modern of any 

 implement of similar type in the Museum. The one illustrated appears 

 to have been a part of a large solid bowlder projecting from the earth 

 with a worn and rounded edge at the top. A "heavy blow projected 

 against the side of this rounded edge would knock off a large spawl, 

 which became at once the completed ax. The rounded edge of the 

 bowlder served for a grip, while the opposite side was the edge. It is 8 

 inches long, Gi wide, and 2 thick, and weighs 4J pounds. Its material 

 is diorite. The smaller one is 4 inches long, 2\ wide, 2 thick, and 

 weighs one-half pound. Its material is indurated shale. Thus we 

 have a veritable ax actually used for cutting trees so rude and simple 

 as to be made at a single blow, and is withal quite modern. 



This implement, for all its rudeness, has no relation to paleolithic im- 

 plements. The paleolithic age or period has sometimes beeu called the 

 age of chipped stone, because its stone implements were made by chip- • 

 ping, and in contradistinction of the neolithic age or period wherein 

 most of the implements of stone were smoothed or polished. But these 

 descriptions are only fortuitous. The term " paleolithic" in connection 

 with prehistoric archaBOlogy means the ancient stone age; "neolithic" 

 means the recent stone age, while the term "eolithic" has been given 

 to the dawn of the stone age, said to belong to the tertiary geologic 

 period. These prefixes eo, paleo, and neo are Greek, and refer to com- 

 parative periods of time, and not to the implements, nor their kind or 

 manner of making. While the principal implements of the paleolithic 

 age were of stone, yet all were not so. Important implements of that 

 age have been found in great numbers made of horn and bone. Bar- 



