ARE THERE TRACES OF GLACIAL MAN IN THE 

 TRENTON GRAVELS ? 



In a paper published in Science, Nov. 25. 1892, I undertook 

 to study the evidence relating to paleolithic man in the eastern 

 United States from a new point of view, — that furnished by cer- 

 tain recently acquired knowledge of the contents of quarries and 

 shops where modern aboriginal flaked implements were made. 

 It was shown that all rudely flaked forms could be sufficiently 

 accounted for without the necessity of assuming a very rude 

 state of culture, and that any people, paleolithic or neolithic, 

 would in roughing out blades — ^the principal product of the 

 flaking process — produce precisely these forms and in great 

 numbers as refuse. It further appeared that the finding of these 

 objects in sporadic cases in glacial gravels or in any formation 

 whatsoever, could not be considered as proving or tending to 

 establish the existence of a particular grade of stone-age culture 

 for the region in which the formation occurs, since they may as 

 readily pertain to a neolithic as to a paleolithic status. It was 

 conclusively shown that no worked stone that can with reason- 

 able safety be called an implem.ent has been reported from the 

 gravels, and that it is therefore clearly useless, not to say 

 unscientific, to go on enlarging upon the evidence of an Ameri- 

 can paleolithic period and multiplying theoretic details of its 

 culture. 



I now propose to review briefly the question of the age of 

 our so-called paleolithic implements, the questions of the grade 

 of a given feature of culture and of the age or chronologic place 

 of that culture being very properly treated separately, as they 

 depend for their support upon distinct classes of evidence. 

 During the past summer, 1892, certain important items of new 

 evidence have been discovered bearing upon the question of the 



IS 



