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Haward has not yet demonstrated, scientifically, that the few flakes upon which he bases his portentous argument have without doubt been detached by pressure. It may also be recalled that the Norwich Stone Bed, as I can testify from actual observation, contains very often fragile bones of mammals, and the sands above it, at Whitlingham, where a large proportion of the sub-crag implements described by Mr. Clarke have been found, have embedded in them even more fragile shells. And it is legitimate to ask why, if pressure is fracturing the hard, resistant flints in the Stone Bed, the easily-broken organic remains mentioned are quite frequently found intact.” Rejecting the pressure hypothesis, Moir suggested another explanation. Before being embedded in the deposit a flint nodule might have been subjected to blows strong enough to produce incipient bulbs of percussion. Later, under the influence of heat, for example, the flakes might have come off. Moir (1919, p. 159) added that Haward himself had noted that some flaked flints he studied bore signs of percussion.

Moir (1919, p. 159) then stated: “But whatever the exact cause of such fracturing may be, it is clear that such cases are very rare, and moreover, when they are found, only one or two flakes are seen to be in contact with the parent block. Yet Mr. Haward does not hesitate to infer that all the other flints exhibiting numerous flake-scars upon their surfaces, and a definite implemental form, have been produced by this same natural fracturing. When also it is remembered that many, if not most, of these latter specimens show by their colouration and condition that they are definitely more ancient than the bed in which they now occur, it will be seen that this inference rests upon a very attenuated and shaky basis. But if this is the case in regard to the Norwich Stone Bed flints, what is one to say about the extension of Mr. Haward’s inference to the specimens found under totally different conditions beneath the Red Crag of Suffolk, and where, up to the present, no evidence of any fracturing in situ has been seen?” Moir (1919, pp. 160–161) pointed out that the specimens found below the Red Crag displayed only signs of flake removal by percussion, with no sign of pressure fracturing.

Moir (1919, p. 161) concluded his remarks with this affirmation: “students of human and animal bones have regarded the existence of man in the Pliocene as almost a necessity, and from my later researches I incline to the belief that not only was man present on this earth at that period, but that he was then culturally much more advanced than has hitherto been imagined.”

3. 3.7 Warren’s Attack on Moir

Still the opposition to Moir continued, with scientists clinging with remarkable tenacity to variations of the natural pressure-flaking hypothesis. Coles (1968, p. 27) stated: “A more scholarly attack on the authenticity of the ‘industries’ was made by S. Hazzledine Warren in 1921, who claimed that mechanical movement of flint upon flint under pressure produced flaking comparable to that seen on not only the Kentish eoliths but also the rostro-carinates and other Crag assemblages. Warren based his argument upon his observations of fractured flints in Eocene deposits in Essex, and upon experiments. Moir and Barnes defended themselves vigorously, and claimed that natural pressure flaking could easily be distinguished from the edge-flaking on the Kentish eoliths and on the Crag series. The naturally-produced specimens claimed by Warren to be of rostrocarinate form from the Essex gravels were said to be entirely different.” In1923, an international commission of scientists concluded that the flaking on the specimens collected by Warren was in fact different from that on Moir’s implements (Section 3.3.8).

Warren’s report was delivered in an address to the Geological Society of London, and was later published in the Society’s journal. In the Eocene location studied by Warren, the flints were lying beneath layers of sediment, upon a chalk surface, where he claimed that they had been subjected