338 Sir H. H. Hoivorth—The Earliest Traces of Man. 



and will probably depend a good deal more on the ethnographer 

 and the linguist than on the archgeologist. 



With that great problem we have not at present to do, however. 

 If we are to make any progress at all we must limit it very con- 

 siderably, and detach ourselves completely from such ambitious 

 issues as the origin of Man, etc., etc., as we must from all attempts 

 at surveying the universe from China to Peru. Our geographical 

 as well as our archgeological frontiers must be sharply limited. 



Let us for a few paragraphs, therefore, limit ourselves to a smaller 

 area and narrower conditions, and try to realize what we have 

 been able to learn of the oldest inhabitants of the European area. 

 It will readily be seen that the problem means that we must 

 summon the geologist to our help. The problem is, in fact, as much 

 a geological as it is an archEeological one. It depends for its solution 

 quite as much upon clearly distinguishing the geological horizon 

 where the test object is found as upon the character and appearance 

 of the object itself. If an object is found in an undisturbed bed 

 of sand, gravel, or clay, it must if thus in situ be as old as the 

 laying down of the bed in question, and that is a geological problem. 



The first step taken in answering the question we are discussing 

 was a long time ago. In 1713 an implement made of black flint 

 and of the type now known as PalEeolithic was discovered with the 

 tooth of an elephant in digging gravel in Grays Inn Lane. This 

 implement was distinctly recognized as of human workmanship, 

 and was presented to the British Museum, in which collection it 

 has since remained. 



In the catalogue of the Sloane Collection we find the following 

 entry in regard to this very famous relic : — " No. 246, a British 

 weapon found, with elephanVs teeth, opposite to hlach St. Mary^s near 

 Grayes Inn Lane (Conyers). It is a large black flint shaped into 

 the figure of a spear point {K.)." It appears, says Sir John Evans, 

 to have been found at the close of the seventeenth century, and 

 a rude engraving of it illustrates a letter on the antiquities of 

 London, by Mr. Bagford, in 1715, and printed in Hearne's edition 

 of Leland's "Collectanea," i, Ixiv. From his account it would seem 

 that the skeleton of an elephant was found not far from Battle- 

 bridge by Mr. Conyers, and that near the place where it was found 

 " a British weapon made of a flint lance, like unto the head of a spear, 

 was dug out" (Evans, "Stone Implements," 2nd ed., pp. 582-3). 

 Sir J. Evans gives a full-sized illustration of this very interesting 

 implement. The importance of this discovery was not recognized. 

 Neither the geological position of the gravels in the Thames Valley 

 nor the fact of the elephant in question having been an extinct 

 animal could then be known or appreciated, and the discovery was 

 doubtless treated as in no sense an extraordinary one from the 

 archseological side. 



The next recorded step taken in this inquiry was also made in 

 Britain, namely, the discovery by John Frere in 1797 of three flint 

 implements of the same type in the beds at Hoxne in Suffolk, which 

 have since become so famous, and in company with bones of great 



