1894.] ; Archeolegy and Ethnology. 89 
ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
The “‘ Plateau Implements” of Southern England.—It is 
natural to suppose, whether we believe in the skeleton of Castenodolo, 
the scratched bones of Monte Aperto, and the worked flints of Thenay 
and Otta or not, that man did not of a sudden manufacture “ Turtle- 
backs” of Chellean type, and that somewhere on the globe stones flaked 
more rudely than the rudest of these, tell of his childish handiwork. 
The question as to the 2500 flint pebbles, nicked, nipped, notched, 
saw edged, and sharp ended, called “ Plateau Implements” and col- 
lected by Mr. Benjamin Harrison near Itham in Kent, England, is 
whether they are or are not artificial. 
The gravels from which they come have not been geologically dated 
by intermixed fossils, but the beds—if not Tertiary must be far older 
than the drift “turtle-back ” bearing strata of the Darent vale below 
them. They spread for miles along a ridge-top 340 feet above the sea, 
with no place to wash from and cannot therefore be connected with the 
present river system of South England. 
Where the surface loam has been weathered off them, the yellow 
patinated “implements” are found lying on the gravel, and it is 
asserted that the latter are in place and not dropped there like the 
white chipped celts of Neolithic men that sometimes lie with them. 
Careful trenching is needed to demonstrate the true position of these 
strange stones, duplicates of which Mr. Worthington G. Smith says he 
has found in the later drift deposits along with “Turtle-backs” near 
Dunstable, in Bedfordshire. But Professor Prestwich one of the first 
recognizers of Boucher de Perthes’ discovery in 1859, views Mr. Harri- 
sons specimens which now awaken contention, as the handiwork of men 
living before the time of the drift. 
Quaternary Gravel Specimens in Spain.—In October, 1892, 
the Baron de Baye visiting the Quaternary gravel exposures at San 
Isidro on the right bank of the Mazanares opposite Madrid, bought 
from a workman two “ Turtle-backs ” (if we may here use the inoffensive 
word) one of quartzite and one of flint, of the type called Chellean by 
M. Gabriel de Mortillet (more or less leaf shaped and chipped on both 
sides) also one other specimen of flint of the pattern called Mousterian 
by de Mortillet (ie, chipped only on one side,) 
1 This depa:tment is edited by Mr. H. C. Mercer, University of Pennsylvania. 
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