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partial resorting of the beds have occurred here is well known to anyone who has conducted excavations. But it remains for L. Mayet to make it plausible that these forces were responsible for the very sophisticated way in which pieces of flint have been broken and worked. Instead he puts off the knowledge-thirsty listener with the suggestion that one cannot precisely describe the action of these natural forces, among which he numbers ‘atmospheric agents, variations in temperature, torrential waters, shifting of geological beds, and certainly other factors about which we remain ignorant.’ It is as if he were trying to silence an unruly child by intimidating him with a multitude of hints of terrible future events, the consequences of which one could not even imagine.” Breuil (1910, p. 407) had tried to do the same thing in his study: “It is clear that the observations made at Belle-Assise do not explain all the natural formations of the Eolithic type; the process that is observed can be juxtaposed with others, such as the action of torrents of water, periods of flooding, the trampling of animals and men, etc.”

In discussing Mayet’s conclusions about the Puy de Boudieu site, Klaatsch (1907, p. 765) made the following observation: “But about the fact that animal teeth in this frightful topsy-turvy have remained quite whole, as if that were possible, we hear nothing.” In other words, if the geological pressures were sufficient to crush blocks of flint, why not the accompanying animal fossils? Klaatsch (1907, pp. 765–766) then stated: “I am therefore not satisfied by Mayet’s concluding assertion that ‘the action of the intense natural forces that have mixed together the sands and flints at this point are perfectly able to have produced the eoliths, eliminating the necessity of suggesting the intervention of human industry.’ People who simply accept these closing words at face value will repeat them as wisdom, and it will afterwards appear that Mayet has proved the natural origin of the Tertiary flint implements. But no, we cannot proceed in this fashion. One should really demand that our adversaries in this debate should fight us on experimental grounds. This reasonable request to solve by experimentation the puzzle of how the flint objects could be produced by the

‘intelligent’ action of natural forces is not weakened by the fact that Mayet was unsuccessful in producing anything resembling a flint implement by the process of banging blocks of stone together.”

Klaatsch (1907, p. 766) then turned his attention to Mayet’s statements about the other site at Aurillac, Puy Courny: “Regarding Puy Courny, Mayet cannot call attention to any geological disturbances such as were present at the other site. Instead he seeks, by heaping up questions, to lead one around the complete lack of reasonable arguments and evidence in favor of his point of view. He simply states with utter complacency in his ‘conclusions’ that the eoliths of Puy Courny ‘are in all likelihood the products of the same natural forces.’ The fact that countless fossils found in the same beds remain completely unchanged by these forces is here also not mentioned.”

Klaatsch (1907, p. 766) then answered one of Mayet’s specific objections: “The great number of specimens at Puy de Boudieu startled him. But in another publication I have pointed out the great masses of artifacts that are to be found at stone workshops in Tasmania. Were such sites to be covered by a stream of lava and then again exposed, this would present much the same sort of scene that confronts one at Puy de Boudieu.” In Africa also, there are sites with thousands of stone tools scattered about. “On the whole,” stated Klaatsch (1907, p. 766), “I must sadly conclude that the work of Mayet has not brought us one step closer to solving the eolith problem.”

4.3.5 A Final Report

As late as 1924, George Grant MacCurdy, director of the American School of Prehistoric Research in Europe, reported in Natural History about the flint implements of Puy Courny (Cantal). Finds similar to those of Rames at Puy Courny