1894. ] On the Evolution of the Art of Working in Stone. 997 
ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE ART OF WORKING 
IN STONE. A PRELIMINARY PAPER BY 
J. D. McGUIRE. 
A REPLY BY CHarues H. Reap. 
In the American Anthropologist for July, 1893, appeared an 
essay with the above title. The writer, with whom I am per- 
sonally unacquainted, was good enough to send me a separate 
copy of it. I read it with some interest, for the efforts of an 
earnest worker, who attempts, by novel methods, to solve a 
difficult problem, cannot fail to be of interest to any one who 
has given attention to the problem itself. 
The question of paleolithic man in America has, moreover, 
given rise to such fierce discussion that it seemed necessary to 
point out the danger that|lies in the use of improper or irrel- 
evant evidence. Such methods can only serve to mislead 
enquirers and to delay the solution of the puzzle. The paper 
now in question is so persistent in its pursuit of will-o’-the- 
wisps that a better text could scarcely be found. 
The problem Mr. MeGuire has set himself to resolve, stripped 
of all redundant matter, is this: whether the so-called palæo- 
lithie remains of Europe are necessarily older than the so- 
called neolithic? Incidentally he implies that “ from a purely 
archeological standpoint, the paleoliths of Europe and the 
similar American implements are in all particulars, identical, 
and are productions of man existing under like conditions." 
What he understands by an archeological standpoint we shall 
see later, but first I would deal with the main contention. 
Noscitur a socii is an axiom of archeology. When an object 
is found in the earth, and is dumb as to its own history, we 
naturally and justly turn to its companions to help us. This 
is good so far as it goes, and in an isolated case we may go 
wrong. But when we multiply the single case with fifty or a 
hundred, finding in all the same association of objects, and 
the circumstances attested by persons of known observation 
and probity, what before was probability is turned into as 
