QUATERNARY 



675 



Eolithic. — In Pliocene and Miocene deposits and, it is asserted, 

 even in those of the Oligocene, extremely rude flints, called eoliths 

 (Fig. 581), have been found. Although rough and crude, they often 

 show one part shaped as if to be held in the hand, while the other part 

 appears to have been designed for cutting. It has long been a question 

 whether these flints were the result of accident or were made by a 

 " tool-making animal," either very early man or a prehuman type 

 given to shaping implements. If the flints did not occur in deposits 

 earlier than the Pleistocene, the question might be answered more 

 certainly, but since 

 they are found in 

 beds laid down more 

 than a million years 

 ago, the difficulty is 

 increased. 



Thediscovery,near 

 Heidelberg, Ger- 

 many, of a lower jaw 

 of a very low type in 

 early Pleistocene de- 

 posits said to contain 

 eoliths, is important, 

 since it gives a clue 

 to the makers of 

 these flints. This 

 lower jaw is massive, 



with an essentially human set of teeth, its most noticeable feature 

 being the absence of a chin projection. In other words, it is the jaw 

 of an anthropoid (manlike) ape with the dentition of a man. As 

 compared with the oldest Paleolithic skulls (Neanderthal) (p. 66j), 

 this one is of a much lower type. It is possible, therefore, that the 

 eoliths of the later Tertiary were made by some tool-making ape. 



A creature (Pithecanthropus erectus) whose fragmentary remains 

 have been found in Pleistocene deposits of Java, associated with the 

 bones of extinct animals, may also have been a member of a race which 

 made eoliths. These remains consist of a skull cap, two molar teeth, 

 and a diseased thigh bone, and are remarkable because of the com- 

 bination of ape and human characters. The skull differs from that 

 of an ape, its brain capacity being about twice that of an ape of equal 

 bodily size. The brain capacity of an ape's skull is, on an average, 



Fig. 581. - 

 Believed to 

 MacCurdy.) 



- Eoliths, the crudest of flint implements, 

 have been made by ape-men. (After 



