REV. BR. A. BULLEN, B.A., ON EOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS. 199 
Recently, Mr. T. Wilson* has drawn attention to some 
very remarkable prehistoric implements, “principally from 
the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, all of flint in curious and 
rare forms, believed to be entirely without utility, and solely 
to gratify an artistic desire. None of them are spear or 
arrow-heads, and none of them appear to have been made 
for any service,” unless indeed they were for personal wear 
as totems. 
It certainly is remarkable that so comparatively civilized 
a person as neolithic man, who in some localities was 
acquainted with agriculture, weaving, fishing, and such 
arts, should leave behind him any implements for which 
no use can now be suggested with any degree of certainty. 
although his arts in an improved manner are still those of 
civilization. 
It is not to be wondered so much that Eolithic man, whose 
very home has disappeared from the face of the earth, should 
have left behind him tools for which, not being savages, we 
find it very difficult to suggest uses. 
But it 1s not improbable that, his wants being reduced to 
their lowest terms, he clad himself in skins, used fire,t made 
use of wood and the sinews of animals for various primitive 
apphances ; and in hunting, poison and pitfalls may have 
been the means of obtaining his ends rather than direct 
attack. 
§XI Holiths: their shapes and probable uses—We have 
evidence of the use by modern North American Indians of 
flint implements of the most primitive type. Prestwich} 
figures one such which shows very little sign of work, but 
is of undoubted authenticity, as the following extract from 
his life§ shows. It occurs in a letter from Dr. Blackmore. 
“ When I say ‘implements,’ the word would perhaps give 
a wrong impression, as the specimens found are rather 
natural or accidental forms of flint that have been taken 
up, used a few times and then thrown away, but the 
evidence of use to any one accustomed to the usual forms 
of flints is unmistakable. As far as I can judge, the early 
* Report US. National Museum, 1897, p. 943, Plate XI. 
+ Dr. H. P. Blackmove (Prestwich, Life, p. 376), has found evidence 
of fire in the gravels at Alderbury near Salisbury, from which eoliths 
(but not paloliths) have been obtained. 
t Controverted Questions, p. 69. 
§ Lbid., p. 363. 
