550 S. H. Warren — TJie Eolithic Controversy. 



If the eoliths are scrapers, the group is not primitive, but highly 

 specialized. It hardly seems credible that such high specialization of 

 form (and presumably of function) should be reached with implements 

 that, viewed as practical tools, are less efficient than naturally broken 

 stones which may be picked up ready made. 



It is urged in defence that if we do not know the uses of the 

 eoliths, neither do we know the uses of the palaeoliths. This is 

 hardly the point; it is not their uses, but their usefulness. In con- 

 trast with the eoliths, the early palseoliths, as so ably shown by 

 De Mortillet, are primitive and generalized in form, and yet they are 

 efficient cutting tools. 



We must now consider the appeal to history. Practically every 

 one who has written in defence of the eoliths has made a strong 

 point of the appeal to the history of the objections formerly 

 urged against the palseoliths. It seems to me that every case 

 must be judged upon its own merits ; to give an illustration, we 

 cannot prove that Eozoon is truly organic by the appeal to history ; 

 to the history, that is, of the controversy which formerly raged round 

 the rival claims of 'sports of nature' and ' petrifactions '. Further, 

 in pouring our contempt upon those who formerly opposed the 

 contemporaneity of man with extinct animals we must not forget 

 that the greater number of the supposed facts upon which the earlier 

 speculators based their belief have long since been discredited and 

 forgotten. We now know that Mr. Frere's discovery in 1797 

 of flint implements with remains of the Mammoth at Hoxne was 

 correct, but it was not only — or even perhaps chiefly — upon such 

 evidences that the earlier speculators really based their belief, but 

 rather upon such things as the 'homo diluvii testis' of OEningen, 

 which is now known to be an extinct salamander. The Rev. J. 

 McEnery's discovery in 1 825 of flint implements and extinct mammalia 

 at Kent's Cavern has also been fully confirmed by Pengelly, but if we 

 go a little more cai'efully into history we shall find that in a large 

 number of cases the side of the opposition was right and has won 

 the day. 



So that if the appeal to history were admitted as scientific evidence 

 (which I do not think it is) it would be at best a dangerous two- 

 edged sword to wield. 



A better argument that has been urged against my point of view 

 by Professor Schwartz and Sir Hugh Bevor ' is that it entails the 

 attribution of chipping, which is in all cases essentially similar, to 

 different natural agencies when found in various geological deposits. 

 These authors argue that the only cause which can be postulated for 

 this uniformity of effect, wherever it may be found, is Man. 



Unfortunately, another of my opponents, Mr. Keid Moir,- urges, 

 with equal show of reason, that the groups of eolithic chipping which 

 are found in different geological deposits are. essentially different 

 from each other. This author argues that natural causes must 



^ A. Schwartz & H. E. Bevor, Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and 

 Phil. See, vol. liii, p. 29 of reprint, 1909. 



^ J. Keid Moir, Abstracts Proc. Geol. See, November 28, 1913, p. 16 ; and 

 elsewhere. 



