The Riddle of the Old Stones: A personal retrospect

THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES : A PERSONAL RETROSPECT By SIR EDWARD HARRISON THE house at Ightham caUed Old Stones,1 once the home of Benjamin Harrison, owes its name to its association with the old stones known as eohths, the subject of this paper. It may be asked whether anything of interest can be related today about an aheady time-worn subject. The answer is to be looked for in the following retrospect. There was a period in the dim past when primitive man had for his tools or weapons nothing better than sticks, stones and, it may be, bones. They had to serve aU purposes, and the same implement, no doubt, served several purposes and was often re-used. Such a period led, sooner or later, to the realization that a stone with edges chipped by nature might be more serviceable than an unchipped stone. The third stage was reached when man discovered that he could improve on nature by doing the chipping himself ; and then it was that the eohths came into being. An eohth, then, is a natural nodule or lump of flint which has been chipped round its edges by man. So primitive a tool is hard to distinguish with confidence from a naturaUy chipped stone. Yet such a distinction can be made in certain cases to be described later. A concise account of the original discovery of eohths and of the developments which foUowed finds a place here. Although first found and first^recognized in Kent, little about eoliths has made its way into the seventy volumes of Archceologia Cantiana, although much has appeared in geological and anthropological journals. The story begins in 1865, when Benjamin Harrison found at South Ash, on the chaUt plateau north of Ightham, two chipped brown flints, which, significantly, he took home and kept, without being ready to claim them as artefacts. They were poor specimens, probably nature's work, but they puzzled him for twenty years, during the time that he was devoting himself to collecting many shaped palseoliths and neoliths. In 1886 he picked up an eolith which he looked upon as a " convincer " (his own word) ; and in 1888 he took an opportunity to open the subject with his eminent mentor and near neighbour, Professor (Sir) Joseph Prestwich, who lived at Shoreham (Kent). After examin- 1 Arch. Cant., LXX, 178. 47 THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES ing many specimens submitted to him, and visiting in Harrison's company may localities where palaeoliths and eohths lay in the plateau gravels, Prestwich, early in 1889, read to the Geological Society of _ London a paper on the palaeolithic implements found near Ightham. Among the specimens Ulustrating his paper was one (No. 464) described as " a large natural flake worked at edges, found on the chalk plateau." No. 464 was in fact one of Harrison's eohths, the first to be recognized by Prestwich as " worked " by man.1 After close examination of specimens and visits to eolith-bearing gravels, Prestwich in 1892 read at the Anthropological Institute a further paper, this time " On the Primitive Characters of the Flint Implements of the Chalk Plateau of Kent "—a paper devoted primarily, though not exclusively, to the eohths. For many years afterwards a lively controversy was carried on in scientific pubhcations between those who accepted eoliths as artefacts and those who did not. This hterature grew with the years, and slowly petered out, more or less, without a clear victory to one set of champions or the other. If, after seventy years, any general conclusion can be drawn, it is that few scientists would today reject all eohths as natural, and stUl fewer would accept as artefacts aU the specimens sometimes claimed as such. Indeed, the great numbers of so-called eoliths presents a problem that deserves further attention. Lord Avebury wrote to Harrison in 1911, " I am satisfied that many, of not most, of your eoliths are worked, though the numbers are staggering." How staggering they are has never to my knowledge been put to a simple arithmetical test, based on my personal experience. In three excavations seen by me whUe the pits were stUl open (at Parsonage Farm, Stansted ; South Ash ; and the crest of Exedown on Terry's Lodge Farm), the diggers found supposed eohths in the proportion of one or more for each square foot of surface uncovered—equal to 27,000,000 in a square mUe of simUar plateau gravel. That even one per cent of such numbers (270,000) could be artefacts is beyond rational belief. And, if the excavators threw away 99.9 per cent of the finds after close examination, a " staggering " number (27,000 per square mUe) remains. That fact is of outstanding significance. In spite of such a facer, I am confident that Harrison was the pioneer in the discovery of true man-chipped eoliths, even though a vast number of " doubtful" specimens found their way to the waste heap in front of his home. Before advancing my reasons for such a claim, I set down here my own qualifications "for such a task, for what they may be worth. First, I passed many years of my youth and early manhood in a house redolent of eohths from ground floor to garret. 1 See Harrison of Ightham, p. 133. 48 THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES Secondly, during the decade 1888-1897, I searched the Plateau gravels in the company of their discoverer once or more during every avaUable week-end. Afterwards, for a far longer period, I continued the same practice, but less often, as opportunities were fewer. Thirdly, Harrison's great collection was always at hand, to examine, ponder over, and " stare a t " (an expression of Professor Bonney's, who like myself found many " a good stare " instructive). Beyond what I have stated, I made no systematic study of the eolithic riddle, though it was never long out of my mind. A distinguished geologist who felt unable to accept the eohths as artefacts was Mr. S. Hazzleden Warren, who in 1905 or thereabout exhibited a large number of eoliths, including some from Harrison's collection, at the Anthropological Institute, regretting his inabUity to regard the chipping as the work of man. He. did so after correspondence with Harrison in which he repeated his regret, as such primitive chipping, if artificial, was just what was wanted to fill a gap in the evolutionary advance which badly needed filling. I was present at the meeting, and, without disclosing my identity, I passed to him a pointed eolith which I had found in the earth thrown out from an excavation on the Plateau, and which I myself accepted with confidence as an artefact.1 He examined it with care and then observed, " Well, if ever I accept any eoliths at all, this is the first specimen that I would acknowledge." His near-admission went far to satisfy me that his mind was not closed on the subject. After this digression I come to the eoliths that are, in my judgment, readily distinguishable from flints chipped by nature. They include : (a) Specimens notably both weU and regularly chipped, e.g. No. 2775 from South Ash.2 (6) Specimens combining regular chipping with strong indications of design, e.g. No. 8782, a semi-circular flint (a half-moon) which has had half a dozen well-marked chips struck off the curved edge, with a complete absence of chipping on the straight edge. (c) Specimens of which No. E48, found at Fairseat, is a very instructive example. It has been broken in two by a straight and probably natural fracture across the middle, and one half is missing. The remaining half has been chipped along one edge (man), and battered along the base (nature). The marked contrast between the artificial and natural edges speaks for itself. (d) Specimens that fall unmistakably into a group all of the same type, and stand or fall together. The best example of this type is 1 This specimen (numbered 3) sketched by Harrison with others, and published as a plate opposite page 343 of Harrison of Ightham, was destroyed in an air raid in 1945. 2 Nos. 2775, 8782, E48 and 8808, also the pointed borers, are in their permanent home, Maidstone Museum. Arch. Cant., LXX, 269. 49 THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES supphed by the boring tools, characterized by a concave curve on each side of a blunted point, and selected by Harrison to Ulustrate his own paper on the eohths.1 One (numbered 9 and 9a) is missing, and another from South Ash has taken its place in the group. (e) Certain specimens found, not on the uneroded Chalk Plateau, but in gravels in dry chalk valleys, notably the Maplescombe vaUey, near Eynsford. These specimens, of which No. 8808 from Maplescombe is an example, suggest a transition from the edge-chipped eohths to the roughly shaped early palaeoliths. No. 2775 (South Ash) Good and regular chipping No. 8782 (Locality Well unknown) marked chlppin Unchipped straight edge Chipped edge J No.8808 (Maplescombe) chipping Eo-Pa aeolith No.E48 (pa i rseat) Battering Four true eoliths (including the transitional specimen) have been sketched to Ulustrate this paper. They are numbered as aheady mentioned. A word of caution about sketches and photographs is, however, essential. Specimens lying flat on a table, or in a glass case, when looked at from above do not show their chipped sides satisfactorUy.' To bring out the edge chipping each side of the specimen must successively be turned up a little, with the consequence that (to use an expression of Sir John Evans when writing to Harrison) " your drawings look better than the stones themselves." It follows that to judge an eohth properly it must be seen and handled—and best, I suggest, at Maidstone Museum. A short notice wUl cover aU that need be said about the hkely uses of eohths. The answer is, nearly everything. For hammering or 1 An Outline of the History of the Eolithie Flint Implements, p. 21, Plate I, 1904. (Out of print, but a copy is available at Maidstone Museum.) 50 THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES bruising, natural stones would be serviceable. For other requirements a primitive race having nothmg at hand better than sticks and stones, and possibly bones, must have used them "for all the ordinary purposes of life." Little speeiahzation could be expected when man first looked for a tool, yet it was not entirely absent from his prentice efforts. Adaptation to needs marks the pointed borers, and other eohths seem well fitted for cleaning skins and scraping poles. Digging stones for grubbing up edible roots and plants, and heavy stones for repelling attacks by man or beast would find their uses on occasion, and other caUs for adaptable eoliths can readily be conceived. Thus the same stone may have been used time and again for the needs of the moment. Some consideration must be given to the hkely age of the eohths, a question which has not yet been finaUy determined. The primitive character of much of the chipping, compared with the more advanced work done in shaping even the first palaeoliths, points to the greater age of the eohths, and the presence of transitional specimens suggests the evolution of palaeoliths from eohths. But the question, considered by reference to geological evidence, remains open. That there are eolithbearing gravels which so far have yielded no palaeoliths is a fact. Yet it would be rash to rely on such a negative : one palsaolith found in such a gravel at any moment might rock the foundations of observations made patiently'for twenty years or more. That eoliths as a class are older than palaeoliths is a probability resting on common sense, but at present it falls short of geological demonstration. Passing, however, from the question of the comparative ages of eoliths and palaeoliths, we may turn again to the geological evidence, which assigns a great antiquity to the eohths. The Chalk Plateau of Kent on which Harrison's eoliths were found rises to a height of 770 feet, O.D., immediately north of Ightham, and slopes gently thence down to sea level near Gravesend, an average of 75 feet in a mile or thereabouts. Eohths worn smooth by rolling in water include specimens found near the present chalk crest. They must have roUed down from higher levels that occupied the present Weald before such heights were eroded by natural agencies, and such an antiquity has to be measured in hundreds of thousands of years. To the geological pointers to great age may be added the confirmation found in recent progress in nuclear physics. Investigations made into the rate of decay of radio-active substances have led to the conclusion that at least two thousand mUlion years have passed since uranium was formed in the crust of the earth, a period that also measures the time of accumulation of the total thickness of all geological deposits. If this immense stretch of time is apportioned among the several deposits by reference to their thickness and other relevant facts, the 51 THE RIDDLE OF THE OLD STONES conclusion is reached that an aUowance of about 1,000,000 years must be aUotted to the time since eohths were made and left in the gravels of the Chalk Plateau. Even after aUowing for a possible margin of error in such huge figures, some approximation to 1,000,000 years stUl holds the field. In the course of this retrospect I have expressed views implying that Harrison was among those who have accepted too many chipped flints as artefacts. Yet he was not undiscriminating. He distinguished the few " convincers " from the numerous " doubtfuls," the latter of which he freely admitted were often " hardly good enough for the witness-box." His pioneer discoveries, and his tenacity in foUowing them up, weU buttressed through the passage of time, as they are, by the more convincing specimens, testify to the value of his researches and to the success of his devotion to the solution of the " Riddle of the old stones." 52