382 



THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



controversy.^ Flints thought by some to be the work of man were discovered 

 by I'Abbe Bourgeois in 1867 in the Miocene of Thenay, Loire-et-Cher, and 

 in 1877 Rames brought to notice flints from the Upper Miocene volcanic ash 

 beds of Puy-Courny, Cantal, in central P>ance, a formation of the same 

 age as the Pikermi fauna. In 1892 Brown proposed the term ' eoliths,' to dis- 

 tinguish these supposed very primitive artifacts from the ' palseoliths ' and 

 'neoliths' of Lubbock (Fig. 174). 



These flints are very rough, but rude as they are, they generally show 

 one part shaped as if to hold in the hand, while the other part appears to be 



B 



Fig. 174. — A. Eolith, Mafflean Epoch, Belgium. B. Palffiolith, Chellean Epoch, Milton 

 Street, Kent, England. C. Neolith, Upper Robenhausian Epoch, GiUe Leie, Denmark. 

 Photograph by MacCurdy, 1909. 



edged or pointed for cutting.- It is a puzzling fact that the earliest eoliths 

 resemble the later ones, there being, therefore, little development or im- 

 provement in form for hundreds of thousands of years. 



Eoliths have been discovered not only in Upper Miocene deposits of 

 central France, but in early Pleistocene gravels of France (St. Prest) and 

 Belgium, in southern England (possibly Kent), and in Upper Oligocene 

 beds of Belgium. The Belgian geologist Rutot has devoted his life to the 

 Eolithic period and proved that, like the Palaeolithic, it is capable of sub- 

 division into a number of stages or industries, which are geologically demon- 

 strable (see Table by MacCurdy). Perhaps the most convincing discovery 



1 Wilson, J. H., Recent Journeys among Localities noted for the Discovery of Remains 

 of Prehistoric Man. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., Vol. XVI, no. 2, Mar. 17, 1905 (read Jan. 18, 

 1904), pp. 65-74. 



2 Penck, A., The Antiquity of Man. Lecture before Washington Acad. Sci., Feb. 1, 1909. 

 Abstr. Science, n.s., Vol. XXIX, no. 739, Feb. 26, 1909, pp. 359-360. 



