Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/41

possible that these discoveries should carry with them the suggestion that man may have existed here as in Europe during that epoch, and that his culture was of closely corresponding grade. These were legitimate inferences and warranted the instituting of careful researches, but it was a dangerous suggestion to put into the minds of enthusiastic novices with fertile brains and ready pens. The idea was hardly transplanted to American soil before finds began to be made. The so-called "types" of European paleoliths suggested the lines upon which finds here should be made, and everything in the way of flaked stones connected directly or indirectly with the glacial gravels which had not yet been fully credited to and absorbed by the inconvenient Indian, was seized upon as representing the ancient time and its hypothetic people and culture. In the early days of the investigation the various rude forms of flaked stones, resulting from failures in manufacture, had not been studied, and were shrouded in convenient mystery, and they thus became the foundation of the new archeologic dynasty in America, the dynasty of the turtle-back. Dr. Abbott states in his first work^[1] that these rude "implements" are not especially characteristic of any one locality, but seem to be scattered uniformly over the state. Specimens of every type, he says, are "found upon the surface, and are plowed up every spring and autumn; but this in no way militates against the opinion that these ruder forms are far older than the well-chipped jasper and beautifully-polished porphyry stone-work."^[2] At that stage of the investigation it was not at all necessary that a specimen should come from the gravels in place or from any given depth, since the "type" was supposed to be easily recognized and was a sufficient means of settling the question of age.

Rude "implements" were called for and they were found. The only requirements were that they should not be of well-known Indian types, that they should be rude and have some sort of resemblance to what were known as paleolithic implements