1 84 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
to be accepted as a fact, and that our beliefs regarding 
man's antiquity must be modified accordingly. 
The gravel terrace in which the Galley Hill skeleton 
was found represents a direct extension of the deposits at 
Swanscombe. As was mentioned in a former chapter, 
Mr Reginald Smith and Mr Dewey found that the 
gravels in the Barnfield pit at Swanscombe represented 
at least three series of deposits of three different ages. 
In which of these three series of deposits were the human 
remains embedded at Galley Hill ? In the Barnfield pit (see 
fig. 57) there are two strata of loam — an upper, containing 
implements of the Acheulean period ; a lower, resting on 
the deepest or basal layer of gravel, and lying under a 
bed of gravel containing implements of the Chellean 
age. In the gravels at Galley Hill the same types 
of implements were found as at the Barnfield pit. 
There can be little doubt that the skeleton lay in the 
lower bed of loam — the one under the Chellean gravel. 
The stratum belongs to the oldest or basal series 
of deposits of the 100-foot terrace. In the basal 
gravel occur the Strepyan or oldest form of Palaeolithic 
implements. 
M. Rutot, who has done so much to systematise and 
date the deposits found in river valleys, not only 
recognised that the Galley Hill man lay in a deposit of 
Strepyan age, but regarded him as a representative of 
that time. It is in the deposits of the same period, as 
M. Rutot was the first to demonstrate, that the early 
Europeans really applied themselves to stonecraft in 
earnest — shaping in a rough and crude manner the 
kind of implements which foreshadow the magnificent 
tools of the Chellean age. That the pioneers of the great 
periods of stone culture — the inventors of the palaeolith 
— should be highly evolved men with big brains did not 
surprise M. Rutot. When, however, we look more 
closely at the facts revealed at the time of the discovery 
there is good reason for assigning the Galley Hill man to 
the subsequent or Chellean period. When, as at Galley 
Hill and at Hailing, representations of a complete 
