Eolithic In geological formations of this uEolithicn time have been found rudely chipped and hammered stones that are regarded by most archeologists as true artifacts, and are called °eoliths.° It is very likely that some of them are really of human handiwork; and it is believed by many persons that an indica tion of their makers is given by the discovery, in 1907, deep in a gravel-bed near Piltdown in Kent, England, of a broken, fossilized skull having human characteristics. Piltdown is on a plateau abounding in eolithic flints and broken pebbles. This skull has been the subject of intense study and discussion. All its features, as well as the brain capacity, denote a being inferior to any other prehistoric race known; but its relationship to them, or to the more recent inhabitants of the globe, remains unde termined; it is not, in fact, fully conceded to be anything but the braincase of an anthropoid ape. These rude relics of the dawn of humanity mark the Pre-Chellean stage; and the situation implied would be dubious were it not that in some places the accompanying imple ments are convincingly of human workman ship, and were it not that an indubitable relic of a human frame has been exhumed: for in the sands of Maurer, near Heidelberg, Ger many, there was found, in 1907, a human lower jaw, which is the oldest or earliest known repre sentative of the human race. This Heidelberg man (Homo heidelbergensis) had many apelike features, but he was unmistakably human, and his period is estimated at 250,000 years ago.
This long warm period was followed by one of great aridity, changing latterly into a moist, cooling phase that brought a renewed glaciation, which, however, did not extend nearly as far toward the south as has the earlier ones; and after a time the glaciers again retreated, and a third warm stage re newed livable conditions throughout the North Temperate Zone, so that southern Europe and northern Africa again became occupied by human inhabitants. They were nomadic sav ages, no doubt, wandering along the river courses; and they possessed so little ingenuity that they were able to improve very little the shapely pebbles, or accidentally fractured flints and other sharp-edged stones that they picked up and tried to use as aids to their hands. That these rude Pre-Chellean forerunners of man kind existed for an immensely long time, and became widely diffused, is shown by the fact that in every part of the world their rough im plements are to be found, substantially alike whatever the region.
Chellean Stage.— The first indication of advance is that stage called Chellean, in which men had not only improved in the shap ing of flint pieces to service, but invented new tools. Its characteristic implement is the "hand-ax° (coup de poluq, of the French), in which an elongated pebble of flint or quartzite was flaked by chipping it on both sides to a point at one end, while usually the natural roundness of the stone was left at the other. This tool was roughly almond-shaped,
of any convenient size, and was grasped in the palm of the hand, it having no other sort of a handle.
Acheulian Stage.—A more advanced stage of this industry is marked particularly by the earliest evidence of knowledge how to kindle a fire — probably the most momentous single dis covery in human history. The flaked flints and other worked-stones of this culture-stage are much superior in both form and variety of utility to those of the Chellean, and represent a really remarkable advance in intellectuality and in breadth of life. This Acheulian period was brought to an end, slowly but steadily, by the approach of the fourth recurrence of glacial cold in Europe, after a third interglacial, or warm, interval of 'about 125,000 years, dur ing which man in industry from Pre-Chellean inability to the excellence of Acheulian productions, which imply a very con siderable elevation above a mere animal existence.
Mousterian Stage.— The arid and steadily cooling climate of Acheulian times was fol lowed, as has been stated, by a fourth glaciation, equivalent to what in North America was the last and greatest •uglacial period," when one ice-cap covered all Europe north of the Baltic, and another spread far outward from the Alps; and the climate was, of course, exceed ingly cold. This is the °Reindeer Period" of the older writers on prehistoric antiquities, a name suitable enough since that and other boreal animals characterized the semi-arctic fauna of all the North Temperate Zone. During this cold time, estimated to have lasted 25,000 years, man continued to exist in what is termed the Mousterian stage of culture; but under the hard conditions of life at that time mankind deteriorated, judging by the inferiority of his tools as compared with those of his Acheulian predecessors. His relics are found most abundantly in southern Europe, and in caves, which were then first resorted to as permanent human habitations, the wintry weather driving men to seek their snug shelter. The Mousterian, then, is the true °cave-man." What he was like is known from a great number of skulls and other parts of skeletons exhumed from cave-floors and other subterranean deposits of this time. The first important find of the kind. was in 1856 in a grotto in the Neanderthal (Neander Valley) near Dusseldorf. Rhenish Prussia; but since then skulls and other bones in excellent preservation have been procured at Canstatt in Germany, Spy in Belgium, Sipka in Moravia, Krapina in Croatia, and at many places in southern France, especially in the caves at Le Moustier in Dordogne, from which the period derives its name.