370 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
taking the geological test of superposition as our guide, men em- 
ployed stone tools which were merely chipped into shape but were 
never polished. It is obvious therefore that human pre-metallic 
times in Western Europe, or the period of stone implements, is 
divisible into two Ages. The most modern of these has been 
termed by Sir John Lubbock the Neolithic Age, that is the age of 
New or Polished stone tools; and the most ancient, the Paleolithic 
Age, that is the age of Ancient or Unpolished stone tools. ; 
Whilst both the Hyzenine and Ursine tools of Kent’s Hole are 
strictly palzolithic, the latter are unquestionably older than the 
former, and in order to distinguish them I propose to call those 
Archaic which are found in the Breccia—that is the older, ruder, 
and more massive series ;—reserving the term Paleolithic for the 
implements of the Cave-earth—the less ancient series. 
Before proceeding further, it may be well to add to the foregoing 
description a few cautionary remarks. 
In all probability the line separating any two successive Ages 
was not sharp or well-defined. Thus, it is not unlikely that after 
men had seen that their stone tools would be more efficient if 
polished, they would still occasionally employ unpolished tools, 
especially in cases in which they would be equally useful; and it 
is eminently probable that after metallic tools had come into 
general use, whilst polished stone implements, on account of the 
labour required to produce them, would drop into entire desuetude, 
except on great and rare occasions, unpolished flint tools would 
still be struck off and used for rough-and-ready purposes. 
Nor must it be forgotten that all men are conservative; and 
were it not that I might be suspected of having a political meaning 
—than which nothing is further from my thought or intention— 
I would have said that their conservatism is great in proportion as 
their culture is small. There is a reluctance on the part of the 
many and the uneducated to part with old usages, old agencies, 
and old tools; and this is notably the case in matters of ceremony 
and of ritual. Hence the unpolished implement, the ‘sharp 
stone,’? may have been employed for sacred uses very long after it 
had ceased to be the most useful tool for the purposes. 
Waiving all this, however, the presence of a polished flint 
implement must be taken as a proof of the Neolithic Age, even 
though found with unpolished implements, provided no metallic 
tools were also found. Further, the paleolithic tools belong to 
