i S 6 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 



point, however, is being steadily pushed back by the aid of fresh evidence of a cultural 

 kind. Formerly, for orthodox archaeologists, the limit of historicity was represented by 

 the horizon of Chelles. But now M. Commont's well-established stratigraphy for the 

 Valley of the Somme includes a pre-Chellean level. It is characterised by the presence 

 of very rough hand-axes and small implements derived from flakes, the associated 

 fauna comprising hippopotamus, elephas antiquus, and an archaic form of elephas 

 primigenius (Congres prehist. de France, Tours, 1910). Indeed, Professor Sollas in his 

 recent work. Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives (1911), is quite prepared 

 to add another to the classical list of periods, and adopts for this pre-Chellean period the 

 name Strepyian, derived from Strepy in Belgium. M. Rutot, the inventor of the term, 

 claims a wide distribution for the characteristic industry of this epoch (Congres d' 

 Archeol. et d' Hist., Malines, 1911). Further, at Torralba in Spain, at a height of some 

 1 100 metres above sea-level, the Marquis of Cerralbo has found pre-Chellean imple- 

 ments, side by side with tusks and other remains of elephas meridionalis and elephas 

 antiquus, in circumstances that suggest that there stands revealed the actual camp or 

 " station" of these early denizens of the world (Congres d'Anthrop. et d' Archeol. prehist., 

 Geneva, 1912). 



Eoliths. If, however, we try to get still further back, we plunge into the stormy 

 waters of the controversy about " eoliths." The question arises whether man or nature 

 is responsible for the pieces of stone shaped and chipped with a certain appearance of 

 design that occur in various geological formations of early pleistocene or even of tertiary 

 age. A while ago opinion perhaps tended to side with the opponents of " eoliths." M. 

 Boule's attack, based on the production of pseudo-eoliths by the crushing machine 

 of a cement-factory at Mantes (L'A nthropologie, 1905, p. 261), had been reinforced by 

 M. 1'Abbe Breuil's discovery of other pseudo-eoliths, caused this time not by percussion 

 but by pressure, at the base of the Parisian Eocene at Belle- Assise (L' A nthropologie, 

 1910, p. 385). Now, however, Sir Ray Lankester comes forward as the champion of 

 man-made implements from the basement-bed of the Suffolk Red Crag, a deposit which, 

 at the latest, marks the very beginning of the Pleistocene epoch (Phil. Trans, of the 

 Royal Soc., Series B, vol. 202, p. 283. Cf. Nature, Oct. 31, 1912). They were discovered 

 by Mr. J. Reid Moir from 1909 onwards at several sites in or near Ipswich; and very 

 similar finds have been made by Mr. W. G. Clarke in the Norwich Crag which ranks as 

 immediately subsequent to the Red Crag (Proc. of the Prehist. Soc. of East Anglia, Vol. 

 i, parts i and 2). Indeed, Mr. Moir has lately claimed to have lighted on human 

 handiwork, not only in the Red Crag, but likewise in the latter middle-glacial gravels and 

 in the still later chalky-boulder-clay of Suffolk, and, in short, to have made out a long 

 series of these very early forms (Times, Oct. 19, 1912). Thus the question of "eoliths" 

 is entering on a new and interesting phase; and, so long as they do not seek to dogmatise 

 prematurely, the bolder spirits who are thus for putting back the beginnings of human 

 culture, deserve a fair hearing and even encouragement 



Palaeolithic Age. Within the traditional limits of the Palaeolithic age, the main 

 interest consists in securing greater accuracy of classification and an exacter correlation 

 with the changes in the geophysical conditions. As regards the drift-period, whilst 

 our collections of " amygdaloid " implements continue to swell, very little has recently 

 been done, at any rate in England, to improve our knowledge of the stratigraphy; and 

 M. Commont's researches in the Valley of the Somme remain unrivalled. Even where 

 stratigraphy fails, however, much may possibly be done by paying more attention to 

 patina, striations, and so on, as indicated by Dr. W. Allen Sturge in two important 

 pioneer essays (Proc. of the Prehist. Soc. of East Anglia, Vol. I, parts i and 2). The 

 cave-period, on the other hand, is fast yielding up its secrets. What, for instance, 

 could be a more triumphant vindication of the classificatory methods of prehistoric 

 archaeology than what was lately revealed in the Cave of Castillo near Puente Viesgo 

 in the North of Spain. Here MM. Breuil, Obermaier and Alcalde del Rio (acting on 

 behalf of the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine newly founded by the Prince of Monaco, 

 to whom the science of prehistorics owes so much) actually brought to light, superim- 



