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A Defence of the “Humanity” of the Pre-River Valley Implements of the Ipswich District

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

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Extract

In the second part of our Proceedings, I was able to give an account of various experiments with flints under natural percussion and pressure, and to show wherein the fractures produced by these means differ from those resulting from human blows. This paper, which was an accumulation of concrete facts, was written with a view to dispelling in some measure the atmosphere of uncertainty which for so many years had surrounded the important subject of the greater antiquity of man.

I now propose to supplement, as it were, the results obtained by my experiments by replying to the various objections which have been raised as to the “humanity” of the pre-Palæolithic implements I have discovered, and to show why in my opinion these objections are by no means insurmountable. I intend to confine myself to a defence of the implements found in my own particular district, because after several years' continual study of these specimens, and the beds in which they occur, I feel able to speak with some amount of confidence about them.

Type
Original Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1913

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References

page 368 note 1 Proc. East Anglian Prehis. Soc., Vol. I., Part 2, “The natural fracture of flint and its general bearing upon rudimentary flint implements,” pp. 171-194.—J. Reid Moir, F.G.S. Also “Nature,” December 26th, 1912, p. 461, “The natural fracture of flint.”—J. Reid Moir, F.G.S.

page 369 note 2 and 3 Proc. Prehis, Soc. of East Anglia, Vol. I., Part III., pp. 307319Google Scholar, “A series of flint implements from the Middle Glacial Gravel and Chalky Boulder Clay of Suffolk.”—J. Reid Moir, F.G.S.

page 370 note 4 Phils. Trans. Royal Soc. of London, Series B, Vol. 202, pp. 283336Google Scholar, “On the discovery of … flint implements below the Red Crag.”—Si, E. Ray Lankester, K.C.B., F.R.S. Proc. Prehis. Soc. of E. Anglia, Vol. I.r Part 1, “The flint implements of Sub-Crag Man.”—J. Reid Moir, F.G.S.

page 373 note 1 “The Making of a Rostro-carinate Flint Implement.”—“Nature,” Nov. 21st, 1912, p. 334.