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which may belong to this group. It is said to have been found at a depth of four metres [about 13 feet], and evidently comes from the red clay drift, which there caps, as it does here, the higher chalk hills. It is four inches long by one and half inches wide, rod-shaped, very roughly chipped all around and at ends, and has a white patina, to which some of the red clay as yet adheres.” This discovery would appear to be well worth looking into, and is representative of the intriguing items one comes across in old journal articles. It might represent a stone implement far older than the others discovered by Boucher de Perthes in the river gravels of the Somme valley at Abbeville, now dated to the Middle Pleistocene, about a half million years old.

After giving testimony about not finding specimens like the Plateau eoliths in Boucher des Perthes’s collection, Prestwich (1892, pp. 252–253) stated: “Nor had Mr. Harrison, during his rigorous examination of the Shode Valley, discovered any specimens in the valley drifts of the Ightham district to correspond with the group of plateau implements. At my request, he has re-examined several of these localities, as well as the large pit at Aylesford in the Medway Valley, and the pits at Milton Street (Swanscombe) in the Thames Valley, with this special object in view. He reports to me that he finds no contemporary specimens of the plateau type, and very few derived specimens of that type.”

Prestwich (1892, p. 268) then cited evidence from De Barri Crawshay, who stated: “I find that on examination of my collection of over 200 specimens of implements and scrapers from the 100 foot level around Swanscombe, Kent, I have but one . . . which is a plateau specimen undoubtedly derived. . . . I have always made specially careful search for all these ochreous flints in the low level gravels, and have rarely found one at all.”

Derived specimens are those washed down from the Plateau and left in the lower level gravels. Prestwich (1892, p. 253) stated: “The derived plateau specimens are easily distinguished, by their greater wear, distinct colour, and peculiar shapes, from the implements contemporary with these valley drifts.”

The valley Paleolithic specimens were very extensively worked, with fine, regular chipping, and generally took the form of points meant, perhaps, to be used as spear heads. There were some crude, unfinished specimens among them, but they were obviously of the same type as the finished paleoliths, and not of the Plateau type (Prestwich 1892, p. 255).

About the Plateau eoliths, Prestwich (1892, p. 256) stated: “The trimming slight though it may be, is to be recognised by its being at angles or in places incompatible with river drift agencies, and such as could not have been produced by natural causes.” Prestwich admitted that some specimens resembling the more advanced valley paleoliths were found along with the Plateau eoliths, and stated (1892, p. 257): “It is not easy to account for the presence of these abnormal specimens. If contemporaneous with the others, we might assume that there were then some workmen more skilled than their neighbors in the fabrication of flint implements.” Working against this hypothesis, according to Prestwich, was the fact that the rude Eolithic specimens were heavily patinated and were very worn, whereas the finished Paleolithic specimens were unpatinated and had perfectly sharp edges. Prestwich surmised the latter might have been left on the Plateau by Paleolithic men in more recent times, long after the eoliths had been deposited. Prestwich (1892, p. 258) then made a very important observation: “Though the work on the plateau implements is often so slight as scarcely to be recognisable, even modern savage work, such as exhibited for example by the stone implements of the Australian natives, show, when divested of their mounting, an amount of work no greater or more distinct, than do these early palaeolithic specimens.” This implies that it is not necessary to attribute the Plateau eoliths to a primitive race of ape-men. Since the eoliths