NOTES ON THP: TASMANIAN AMORPIIOLITHES. 



(By Fritz Noel ling, M.A., Ph. D., etc.) 



I. INTRODUCTION. 



The application of the terms: Eolithic, Palaeolithic, 

 and even Neolithic to designate certain groups of stone 

 implements, has of late become very erratic and uncertain. 

 It would trangrcss the limits of this paper to discuss the 

 causes of this vacillation, but it is suflFicienb to say that 

 tlie so-called "biological" moment is a good deal responsible 

 for this uncertainty. Tools and implements wrought by 

 human hands, whether at the dawn of mankind, or in the 

 heyday of our present civilisation are lifeless objects, and 

 no" matter of argument will ever instil them with life. 

 Tbese objects are the produce of a more or less advanced 

 technical skill of their makers, and therefqre the represen- 

 tatives of certain technical stages, which must not neces- 

 sarily have existed simultaneously all over the earth. 

 Form 'alone, unsupported by other evidence, is no prool 

 of age, this we may take as granted, and all modern 

 authors agree on this point. The best and safest way is 

 therefore to divest the terms Eolithic, Palseolithic, and 

 Neolithic of all connection with age, absolute or relative, 

 and to consider them as terms, merely used to express a 

 certain stage of -finish — in other words, to represent cer- 

 tain technical stages during the general evolution of hu- 

 man life. If applied in this restricted sense only, the 

 above terms lose at once all their uncertainty, because it 

 is easy enough to define the essential features of a given 

 technical stage. 



If we let the bewildering mass of relics which innum- 

 erable generations have left behind pass review, one fact 

 becomes conspicuous at once. There is a large group of 

 implements which leave no doubt that it was the intention, 

 the will of their makers to produce a certain, well-defined 

 form. These implements bearing evidence of the intention 

 or will to produce a certain shape may be conveniently 

 termed : Morpholithes. The other large group repre- 

 sents all those numerous, shapeless implements, which bear 

 no evidence of the maker's will or intention to produce a 

 definite shape. This group of implements may fitly be 

 termed : Amorpholithes. 



It will at once be seen that the Amorpholithes repre- 

 sent a lower technical stage than the Moqoholithes, and 

 that of necessity they are not so conspicuous objects as the 

 latter. In fact, it is almost impossible to distinguish the 

 lowest types of Amorpholithes, that is to say, objects 

 wrought by human hands, from specimens accidentally 

 produced by natural causes, unless we have some unshak- 

 able evidence in proof of their artificial nature. It is 

 probably this difiiculty, and the reluctance to express a 



