Mnnchester Memoirs, Vol Ivii. (191 3)> ^'c- ^- 7 



have been used for some purp.ose, it is therefore an 

 implement. 



I went to see Mr. Benjamin Harrison of Ightham, the 

 original di.scoverer of the Kentish Eoliths. I was amazed 

 at the manner in which he manipulated his Eoliths. If 

 the so-called implement would not fit the right hand, then 

 it was evidently intended for a left-handed man, and the 

 varietN' of purposes to which they might, could, would, or 

 should have been put was without limit. Evidence of 

 such a character is of little scientific importance. 



Mr. Harrison and his followers constantly adduce in 

 support of their claims some of the very rude implements 

 of the Tasmanians, saying, as is perfectly true, that many 

 of them would never be recognised as implements unless 

 they had actually been obtained under such circumstances 

 that there can be no doubt about the matter. They claim 

 that man}' of the debatable Eoliths are similar to those 

 used by the Tasmanians, and thus arrive at the con- 

 clusion that they must therefore be implements. In this 

 conclusion they are not, in my opinion, justified. The 

 fact that a stone is capable of being used as a tool is not 

 evidence that it actuall)- was so used, and it is the latter 

 feature which is essential. 



Every unbiassed person who traces the gradual 

 improvement of flint implements from the rough Chellean 

 types, through the Acheulean, Mousterian, and Aurig- 

 nacian, to the magnificently worked flints of the Solutrian 

 period, must admit that, preceding the Chellean period, 

 there must have been other stages of even more primitive 

 implements ; in the Stre[)yan implements of M. Rutot 

 we seem to have such types, made out of flint nodules by 

 a deliberate flaking, so as to bring the borders to a more 

 or less sharp but irregular edge. 



From the Strepyan to the top of the Acheulean we 



