The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

It implies continued attention directed by the will to the accomplishment of an object already conceived in the mind, and its subsequent application to another object which must also have been conceived in the mind before the tool was begun.

Now we know from all experience, and from all evolution which we can trace with certainty, that progress moves on in an accelerating ratio, and that the earlier processes take longer than the later ones.

Plate XII.

Diagram 1.

But the implements of the drift, which are the earliest relics of human workmanship as yet recognized, are most of them multi-flaked tools, such as the implements figured on Plate XII, Nos. 1-10, requiring a considerable time to construct, and the use of innumerable blows in order to trim to a point at one end.

It appears therefore evident that in the natural course of events the drift period must have been preceded by an earlier period of considerable extent characterized by the use of single-flaked tools. And we may therefore consider it probable that should any evidences of man be hereafter discovered in miocene beds, they will be associated with such large rude flakes as those now exhibited, which require a feebler effort of attention and of reason to construct.

If we examine the forms of the flint implements of the drift, we find that out of many intermediate shapes we may recognize three in particular, which have been minutely described by Mr. Evans in his valuable work on the stone implements of Britain[9]: (1) a side-tool, consisting of a flint chipped to an edge on one side and having the natural rounded outside of the flint left on the other side, where it appears to have been held in the hand; (2) a tongue-shaped implement chipped to a point at one end, and having the rounded surface for the hand at the big end; and (3) an oval or almond-shaped tool, which is often chipped to an edge all round.

We have no evidence to show which of these kind of tools was the earliest; but that they were employed for different uses there can be little reason to doubt. But have we any evidence to throw light on the way in which these several forms originated in the minds of men in the very low condition of mental development which we may suppose to have existed at the time?