1897] PRIMEVAL REFUSE HEAPS AT HASTINGS 41 
There is, however, no reason why the people who left these 
mounds of refuse should not have proceeded inland, and there 
formed settlements; but under these conditions the relics left 
behind would necessarily be of a very different nature. Certainly 
they would not consist largely of shells as does the Midden 
material near the sea-shore. If we found a similar set of animal 
remains in the Middens and in inland settlements, it would be 
something to indicate that both deposits might have been geologi- 
cally contemporaneous. But this evidence would be by no means 
conclusive, as the people inland, in the absence of a plentiful 
supply of fish, might have been driven to the chase, and thus have 
captured a large number of animals which eluded the skill of the 
fisherman, remains of which would be present among the relics of 
the former but not among the latter. Then again, the landsmen 
would naturally be first to practise any kind of domestication of 
animals for the purpose of food and clothing, and would doubtless 
adopt. this custom long before the fishermen annexed it to supple- 
ment their method of obtaining sustenance. It will thus be seen 
that, although a given set of animal remains might enable us to 
fix approximately the geological ‘age’ of the deposits, their 
presence or absence would not be sufficient evidence to enable 
us to correlate deposits found upon the sea-shore with those 
occurring mid-land. Unfortunately the appearance and disappear- 
ance of animals associated with man are not so clearly indicated 
by our time charts, as at present constructed, as they ought to be; 
so that the fossils of man’s mental evolution over a given locality 
—namely, the exhibitions of skill in the production and fabrication 
of articles to obtain the necessaries of life, and make it more 
endurable, or gratify his desires—-must serve as the figures upon 
our chronograph. If, for example, all implements found in these 
deposits were of the well-known Paleolithic types, we should not 
hesitate in classing the Middens as Pleistocene. If there were a 
profusion of beautifully polished axes and barbed arrow heads, we 
should assign them to the ordinary Neolithic men; and if only 
a single bronze implement were found, we should just as readily 
relegate them to the age of metal. So also if we find a certain 
set of relics differing from anything else previously recognised, 
although they may tell us little of the actual age of the deposit, 
yet they may prove invaluable in correlating the age of identical 
objects found over a large extent of country, and justify our assign- 
ing them to one race of people: and if from each of the localities 
in which these are found we obtain supplementary evidence, we 
may at last obtain a most comprehensive and reliable account of 
the heretofore unknown people. 
Judged by this standard, I do not at present see anything to 
