April, igo6.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



399 



Eolithi^ MaLi\. 



By W. A. DuTT. 

 Just now, when the Eohthic controversy is sjeneratingf 

 so much heat, and we are having-, to some extent, a repe- 

 tition of the arg-uments used for and against the authen- 

 ticity of Paia?oiithic implements some sixty years ag;o, 

 it may be worth while to look a little further afield than 

 the Kentish Chalk Plateau and sec how widely eoliths 

 appear to be distributed over the surface of the earth, 

 and what are the views of the chief authorities on 

 these supposed implements of human fashioning- in 

 respect to their relation to the question of the antiquity 

 of man. That we are enabled to do this with slight 

 difficulty we owe chiefly to iM. A. Ivutot, the Curator of 

 the Brussels Royal Museum of Natural History, and 

 one of the mostdiligentinvestigatorsof Eolithicproblems. 



As long ago as 1867, the Abbe Bourg-eois claimed to 

 have discovered at Thenay (Loir et Cher), at the base 

 of some freshwater beds, which are now referred to the 

 Upper Oligocene. some flints which had been worked 

 by human hands; and if the human fashioning- of these 

 stones could be admitted they would furnish evidence 

 of the earliest appearance of man on the earth which 

 has yet been sugg-ested to us. On the subject of these 

 Thenar flints, however, authorities disagree, and as 

 recent researches in the locality have failed to reveal 

 flints bearing any resemblance to those found by the 

 Abbe Bourgeois, M. Rutot considers it advisable to 

 leave the matter of Upper Oligocene man in suspense. 



About the flints of Puy-Courny, near Aurillac, however, 

 he has no doubt, and in considering them the earliest 

 genuine eoliths he has the support of M. G. de 

 Mortillot, Dr. Capitan, and several German anthropolo- 

 gists. These Puy-Courny flints were first found bv M. 

 J. B. Ramcs, in an Upper Miocene deposit, and their 

 chipping is said to be remarkably clean and character- 

 istic. So far they are the strongest evidence of the 

 existence of Miocene man. As M. Rutot remarks* : 

 " This industry being the most ancient known and ad- 

 mitted, it is to the Upper Miocene we must go for the 

 first certain evidence of the existence of man." During 

 the last two or three years a great number of eoliths 

 have been met with in various localities of the Cantal 

 Miocene, and a fine collection of them has been arranged 

 and classified by M. Rutot for the Brussels Museum. 



Next in order of antiquity, M. Rulot places the flints 

 of the Kentish Chalk Plateau, which he refers to the 

 Middle Pliocene, and describes as implements intended 

 to break, scr.'ipe, smooth, and pierce. 



Coming down to the Upper Pliocene, he claims as 

 representing the eolithic industries of that period the 

 flints discovered by the .'\bbe Bourgeois at St. Prest 

 and those met with by Mr. Lewis Abbott in the Cromer 

 Forest Bed. Geologists are uncertain, however, 

 whether the implementifcrous gravels of St. Prest 

 belong to the Tertiary or the Ouaternary period, ;ind 

 there seems lo be a general opinion that it is safer to 

 refer them to a period of transition between two dis- 

 tinct epochs. This is also the case with the deposits 

 of the Cromer Forest Bed. So far verv few supposed 

 worked flints have been found in the l'"orest Bed; bul 

 M. Rutot, to whom thcsi- were submitted bv Mr. Lewis 

 Abbott, states that he h.-id no ditlicultv in recognising 

 them as eoliths. 



The earliest Ouaternary deposits containing eoliths 

 are, according to the same authority, met with in the 



• Bulletin of the Belgian Society of Geology, Pal.xontology, and 

 Hydrology, Vol. XVII. (pp. 425-438.) 



valley of the Lys (Flanders), in the valleys of the 

 Escaut, Haine, Sambre, and Meuse, and on the plateau 

 of the Campine. These early Ouaternary implements 

 are especially abundant around the village of Reutel, 

 and M. Rutot has given the name of Reutelien to this 

 particular eolithic industry. " Tlie use of the flints," 

 he writes, " dates from the beginning of Ouaternary 

 time, corresponding -with the phase of the advance 

 of the first Ouaternary glacier." With the retreat of 

 this glacier a new industrv was developed, examples 

 of which arc found in the valleys of the Dendre, Haine, 

 Sambre, and elsewhere. Tliis industry is considered 

 lo be transitional between the Reutelien and a later one 

 called Mesvinien, after a characteristic locality situated 

 between Hyon-Ciply and Spiennes. Tliis last-named 

 is also unmistakably eolithic; but in certain localities 

 the beds containing it are overlaid by deposits supplying 

 transitional forms between the eolithic and early 

 Pala'olithic. The second transitional industry, which 

 is known as that of Strepy, is naturally reckoned by M. 

 Rutot as one of great interest and importance, as the 

 localities in which it is met with not only provide im- 

 plements in which eolithic forms are perfected, but also 

 t)'pes which enable the archaeologist to understand the 

 origin of the well-known almond-shaped implement of 

 the Palaeolithic period. 



It may be mentioned in passing, that M. Rutot, after 

 drawing attention to the fact that the primitive or 

 eolithic period is characterised by an absolute stagna- 

 tion — that is to say, the latest eolithic implements are 

 no better nor worse fashioned than the earliest — ad- 

 vances an ingenious theory to explain the sudden ad- 

 vance in flint-working, noticeable in the period of transi- 

 tion between the Eolithic and the Palaeolithic. This 

 was due, he suggests, to a purely geological cause. In 

 the Tertiary period, he says, an abundant supply of 

 flints could be easily obtained by the men who had 

 occasion to use them; but at the beginning of the 

 Quaternary the flint beds were, to a large extent, 

 covered bv fluviatile deposits. .'\s a result, men began 

 to fight for the possession of the localities where flints 

 could still be found, and this fighting led to the inven- 

 tion of implements which could be used as weapons of war. 



In a paper printed in the Bulletin of the Brussels 

 .Anthropological Society, the distinguished Belgian 

 savant expresses a belief that the investigation of 

 eolithic problems now in progress must, in course of 

 time, have valuable results, and he instances the dis- 

 coveries of stone implements by Dr. G. Schweinfurth 

 in Upper Pilocene deposits, in the neighbourhood 

 of Thebes, and of similar implements by Dr. Klaatsch, 

 in beds containing" remains of the great marsupials 

 (Diprotodon) of Queensland as evidence of the wide 

 distribution of eoliths over the surface of the globe. 



The accompanying photographs of (lints of eolithic 

 forms produced in the Cement bactory of Mantes must 

 naturally arouse considerable doubt as to the human 

 fashioning of many so-called eolithic implements : but it 

 remains to be proved that natural causes can have eflected 

 such flaking and chipping as is done in a cement factory. 



By the courtesy of the Secretary of the .\nthropologifal 

 Institute we are able to reproduce the photographs made bv 

 Dr. Hugo Obermaier, of Paris, of the flints of eolithic form 

 which are ,-iccidentally produced in the process of makinET 

 cement at Mantes, and Dr. Obermaier, in his paper, says : — 

 " I know no eolithic type which has not its correlative at 

 Mantes. .Specimens of large size are only absent because 

 the l)igg,?r blocks and slabs are not put into the machine ; 

 but there occur cores, flakes, scrapers, and borers — in a 

 word all the eolithic types ; and the.se are partly of rudi- 

 mentary execution like the ' utilised ' flints of the pre-palaso- 



