^71.1 106 [February 



III 



The Authenticity of Plateau Implements 



THE paper of Mr W. Cunuington in the November issue of 

 Natural Science calls for a reply. Perhaps it is all the 

 more interesting because it is a recantation of former belief, and 

 as some of us still retain the belief which Mr Cunnington has 

 abandoned, it may not be out of place for one who was able to be 

 of some use to Sir Joseph Prestwich to take up the gauntlet which 

 Mr Cunnington has thrown down. 



I must confess at starting that I do not understand what Mr 

 Cunnington means by a silicious deposit on the surface of the 

 ochreous flints. Some hundreds of these have passed through 

 my hands, and I have never observed any such deposit. What 

 Sir Joseph Prestwich did notice was that, " owing to a molecular 

 change of the surface, the flint has sometimes assumed the white 

 colour and glazed aspect (patina) of porcelain." ^ 



The origin of the patination of flints has been frequently dis- 

 cussed, and as the conditions necessary for its formation obtain 

 upon the plateau, the existence of this feature does not invalidate 

 the claim to human work ; but when it is borne in mind how 

 much more readily patination takes place upon a sharp man-struck 

 facet, it points rather the other way. 



But, even if deposits of silica were proved to exist on the 

 flints, this might be a matter of interest to the mineralogist, but 

 cannot affect the question of the human workmanship of some of 

 the flints, which stands on its own merits. 



As for the difference in size of the flakes removed from the 

 plateau flints, they can be easily paralleled in any collection of 

 Neolithic flints of the same general appearance and age. From 

 Cockerhurst, e.g., from some of the larger neoliths, the flakes are 

 quite Brobdignagian, and from others contrastedly Liliputian. 

 Here, at all events, there is no question of ice-action. 



Nor can the existence of striae, glacial or otherwise, prove or 

 disprove the human workmanship of the bulbed flakes over which 

 they pass. 



Mr Cunnington states (p. 332) that " there are no known 



^ Prestwich, "Controverted Questions in Geology," p. 61. 



