436 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
ing of floating ice (mainly local pack ice) which would have jammed 
together patches of flints strewn on the floor of the shallow sea (War- 
ren, 1948). Certain flakings strewn on an alleged land surface within 
the Red Crag at Foxhall have been widely accepted as artifacts, even by 
those who do not accept the Sub-Crag chippings. To my mind the 
Foxhall “floor” is an enigma to be further investigated, rather than a 
proof of the existence of man in Britain during the Villafranchian 
stage. 
If the Tertiary and Sub-Crag eoliths are unacceptable, what then 
are the oldest undoubted artifacts? Certainly not those of the “Crome- 
rian industry” which has proved to be nonexistent, consisting appar- 
ently of flakings produced on the Cromer foreshore in recent times 
by the concussion of one stone against another in storms. These flak- 
ings occurred among a spread of big stones which had the appear- 
ance of passing under the Forest Bed (Warren, 1940). The only 
flaked flints found in situ at this site appear to have belonged to the 
Stone Bed of the underlying Weybourne Crag. The ochreous patina 
of the foreshore flakes was at one time regarded as proof of their antiq- 
uity, but Warren found evidence that this patination is acquired in 
a few years on the Cromer coast, possibly on account of the action 
of some alga. 
Recently Dr. Alfred Rust (1956) published an account of some 
sandstone pebbles with chipped margins found in the Mauer Sands 
of earliest Middle Pleistocene age which yielded the famous mandible 
of “Homo” heidelbergensis.« He kindly gave me the opportunity to 
examine his collection in 1956; but I must confess that I was unable 
to find any among those from the Mauer Sands which I could un- 
reservedly accept as possibly worked by man. Most of the local sand- 
stone, even before it was weathered, is too coarse and friable to make 
serviceable tools. Indeed, Heidelberg man could have cut more effec- 
tively with flakes of the hard limestone (Muschelkalk) available in 
the same valley. 
In Europe we are left with the so-called Abbevillian hand axes 
and dactonian flakes in the 40-meter terrace of the Somme as the 
oldest unquestionable artifacts. The only question here is whether 
the geological horizon of the “Abbevillian” is First Interglacial or 
an interstadial within the Second Glaciation, which is by no means 
impossible. (In fact, the same question applies to the Mauer Sands.) 
When we turn to Asia we find that the oldest undoubted artifacts 
are in the same time bracket, either immediately antedating or con- 
temporary with some phase of the Second Glaciation. The Pre-Soan 
flakes from the Boulder Conglomerate in the Punjab are not entirely 
convincing, for they may have been produced by glacial action; but 
*Now regarded as the European equivalent of Pithecanthropus. 
