240 THE STONE AGE IN NOVA SCOTIA.—PATTERSON. 
acre, and | have seen instances where such a layer of not more 
than two or three inches deep was found covering a circuit of 
not more than twenty or twenty-five feet in diameter, as if it 
had been occupied by a single camp. 
The first question which arises is as to the geological age of such 
deposits. Some Archzeologists of the United States have claimed 
to find relics of man in situations, which would indicate his 
existence previous to the glacial age, and many European Archzeo- 
logists have drawn similar conclusions regarding the antiquity of 
man in the old world. Whether these inferences be correct as to 
these countries or not, in Nova Scotia, as Dr. Honeyman has point- 
ed out, the remains have always been found in such situations as 
clearly showed that they were not of glacial age. They may be in 
the vicinity of deposits of this kind, but they are not of them. 
Another question may be noted here. In the old world 
Archeologists from the nature of the implements found, 
and their position when discovered, have divided the stone age 
into two periods, distinguished by the use of chipped and polished 
stone implements, and known as the Palzeolithic and the Neoli- 
thic. Some American students, carried away by the authority 
of their names, have sought to find the same in America. But I 
believe that American Archzeologists are now generally coming 
to the conclusion that in the new world there is no ground for 
such a distinction. We have always thought the idea irrational 
in itself. Instead of the making an implement by chipping being 
a simple act, which could be performed by beings in a low state 
of development, and polished implements, being the product of 
skill requiring a more advanced intelligence, it is rather the 
reverse. The grinding of a stone to an edge by rubbing it on 
another is the simplest act, requiring the least amount of thought 
(see No. 12) while the formation of an arrow-head is a work of 
considerable skill, so much so that scientific men only learned 
how it was done from savage tribes, who still practised the act. 
At all events, in Nova Scotia the rudely blocked out implements 
and the perfectly formed ones, both chipped and _ polished, are 
found together in a way that precludes the idea of their being 
the product of different eras. 
