BY F!RITZ XiOETDIXiG, M.A., Bh.-D., ETC. 275 



fhem, a specimen from Tasmania. Though very insig- 

 nificant looking, these specimens have been submitted to 

 a good deal of hammering, but whether we consider them 

 as actively or passively used matters very little. The 

 main point is that they were used by human beings. 



I have only a few specimens from the Mafflien in- 

 dustry, but a larger one from the Mesvinien, from the 

 famous locality of Spiennes. The implements of that 

 industry find their counterparts in the tronatta, though 

 it seems that on the whole the treatment of the indical 

 face never attained the high finish of some of the 

 tronattas. The most interesting specimen is a rolled 

 pebble of fiint, probably a reject, which proves conclu- 

 sively that the Messinien industry obtained some of the 

 material from gravel deposits, exactly as the Tasmanian 

 industry did. This ends the archaeolithic, or as Dr. Rutot 

 says, the eolithic stage of the evolution of stone imple- 

 ments. The next stage, the Strepyien, is considered by 

 Dr. Rutot as a passage stage between the archaeolithic 

 and palaeolithic periods. It must, therefore, be of a par- 

 ticular interest, because its implements should exhibit the 

 evolution of the unsymmetrical archaeolithic into the 

 symmetrical palaeolithic. In the next higher stage, the 

 Chelleen, there appear for the first time those peculiar 

 implements of a amygdaloid form, roughly chipped on 

 both faces; the difference between pollical face and indical 

 face has disappeared. These implements have been 

 styled " coups de poing," and have been considered as a 

 kind of universal instrument. I agree, however, with 

 Herr Klaatsch, that they have rather to be considered as 

 soear heads. We have seen that the first weapon of primi- 

 tive man was a wooden spear, and that in every proba- 

 bility the spear was the first human implement provided 

 with a stone head. As it is pretty certain that the human 

 beings of the Mesvinien stage used wooden spears only, 

 it is very probable that those of the Chelleen stage, who 

 already practised the bi-faced trimming of their imple- 

 ments, had also made the invention of providing the 

 wooden spear with a stone head. This invention would 

 in all probability have been made during the Strepyien 

 stage — that is to say, at the beginning of the middle 

 quarternay — the Campinien stage in Belgium, towards 

 the end of the second interglacial period in Europe. 



