6 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1912 



We have thus, as a datum, the fact that in Mousterian 

 man we possess the earhest safe evidence of man's existence 

 in these islands. But if we accept the evohitionary hypothesis 

 of the evolution of man from lower forms, we must postulate 

 a period of enormous duration lying behind the Mousterian 

 period, and possibly stretching back even to the Tertiary era. 

 Here we come to consider the Eolithic problem and the dis- 

 coveries recently made in East Anglia by Dr. W. Allen Sturge. 



The EoHthic problem starts with the investigations of 

 Abbe Bourgeois in 1867, in beds of the Upper Oligocene age 

 near Thenay, a village situated south of Orleans. Similar dis- 

 coveries in other localities have led to a protracted controversy, 

 which is still being vigorously conducted. On the whole, the 

 most sober and qualified observers, including Professor Sollas, 

 who, however, wrote on the eve of further important investi- 

 gations, are inclined to question the artificial origin of many 

 or most of the implements known as Eohthic. In this country, 

 for instance, Mr S. Hazzledine Warren has conducted experi- 

 ments by which he has satisfied himself that flints laid upon a 

 road are often broken by the pressure of cart-wheels and the 

 like into forms which closely simulate Eoliths ;' and M. Boule 

 at Guerville near Mantes, by investigations conducted at a 

 cement factory, concludes that flints smashed into fragments 

 by the revolving of the mixer by which the clay and chalk are 

 stirred, tend to assume shapes which, in every particular, 

 correspond to the Eolithic type.'' Abbe Breuil asserts, with, 

 perhaps, less certainty, that similarly shaped objects are the 

 result of pressure exercised by the movements of strata sett- 

 ling under superincumbent pressure.^ These varied lines of 

 evidence lead Professor Sollas, the last and best authority on 

 the subject, to question the validity of the evidence from 

 Eoliths as proof of the existence of man in geological strata 

 older than those of the Pleistocene age.'* 



The same view is accepted by many competent authori- 

 ties in regard to the so-called Plateau implements found by 

 Mr B. Harrison at Igtham, in Kent. At the same time, the 



1. Journal Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905 pp. 337 tt seqq. 



2. L' Anthropologic, xvi. (1905) pp. 257 et seqq. 



3. Ibid: x.xi. (1910) pp 385 et seqq. 



4. Op. cit. p. 69. 



