Further discoveries of eoliths in the early 20th century - in East Anglia by J. Reid Moir and in continental Europe by Aimé Louis Rutot and H. Klaatsch - were taken to be evidence of human habitation of those areas before the oldest known fossils. The English finds helped to secure acceptance of the hoax remains of Piltdown man. Because eoliths were so crude, concern began to be raised that they were indistinguishable from the natural processes of erosion. Marcellin Boule, a French archaeologist, published an argument against the artifactual status of eoliths in 1905,Boule, M. (1905) - « L'origine des éolithes », L'Anthropologie, t.
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"Hammerstone" eolith, recognized to be of natural origin by Boule in 1905 An eolith (from Greek "eos", dawn, and "lithos", stone) is a chipped flint nodule. Eoliths were once thought to have been artifacts, the earliest stone tools, but are now believed to be geofacts (stone fragments produced by fully natural geological processes such as glaciation). The first eoliths were collected in Kent by Benjamin Harrison, an amateur naturalist and archaeologist, in 1885 (though the name "eolith" was not coined until 1892, by J. Allen Browne). Harrison's discoveries were published by Sir Joseph Prestwich in 1891, and eoliths were generally accepted to have been crudely made tools, dating from the Pliocene.
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He says they fail to give due credit to the advances in technique that distinguish science in recent times from that of the nineteenth century. And he brings forward various objections to their analysis of eoliths, stone artifacts sometimes regarded as tools. Wodak and Oldryod also criticize the book's discussion of eoliths. Moreover, they say, although granting the book's theory that anatomically modern humans co-existed with more primitive forms would certainly alter our current thinking about human history, it would not invalidate orthodox evolutionary theory.
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Payen (1982) studied flake scar angles as traits for distinguishing artifacts from geofacts. He tested a method developed by Barnes (1939) who had compared frequency of obtuse angles on eoliths, natural fractures, and artifacts. Barnes found obtuse angles on 72% of eoliths, 75% of natural fractures, and 18% of artifacts and concluded that “The flaked tools of an industry…may be considered to be of human origin if not more than 25% of the angles scar-platform are obtuse (90° and over)” (Barnes 1939:111). Payen measured all flake angles on each Calico specimen in his sample.
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Although the debate continued for about three decades, more and more evidence was discovered that suggested a purely natural origin for eoliths. This, together with the discovery of genuine early Lower Pleistocene Oldowan tools in East Africa, made support for the artifact theory difficult to sustain.
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Flint implements are not uncommon, and reputed eoliths have been found in the pebble beds near the village centre. In 1909 several cinerary urns of late Celtic date were found near the road towards Worms Heath; one of them contained bones. In several places are depressions which may have been pit houses. Two of these are in the grounds of Bryn Cottage.
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In an illustration Boule commissioned, the Neanderthal was characterized as a hairy gorilla-like figure with opposable toes, according to a skeleton which was already distorted with arthritis. As a result, Neanderthals were viewed in subsequent decades as being highly primitive creatures with no direct relation to anatomically modern humans. Later re-evaluations of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton have roundly discredited Boule's initial work on the specimen. He was one of the first to argue that eoliths were not manmade.
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When the science was considered reasonably settled as to the existence of "Quaternary Man" (humans of the Pleistocene), there remained the issue as to whether man had existed in the Tertiary, a now obsolete term used for the preceding geological period. The debate on the antiquity of man resonated in the later debate over eoliths, which were supposed proof of the existence of man in the Pliocene (during the Neogene). In this case the sceptical view won out.Marianne Sommer, Bones and Ochre: the curious afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland (2007), p.
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As a university student, he was a Dreyfusard in the controversy over the false conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Consequently, under the sponsorship of French geographer and anarchist Élisée Reclus, after graduation he emigrated to Belgium to avoid service in the French military. In Belgium, he taught, did field research, and published on geological and archaeological subjects, including the controversial identification of “eoliths,” or possible primitive stone tools dating well back into the Pleistocene.Engerrand, Georges (1905). “L’état actuel de la question des éolithes.” Revue général des sciences pures et appliquées 23:541-548.
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Apart from being a village shopkeeper, Benjamin Harrison won international recognition as a pioneer in archaeology. He maintained that the many flints – "eoliths" – which he found in the pre- glacial drift on the North Down were artefacts that challenged current beliefs about the antiquity of man. Spending the greater part of his spare time on this amateur hobby, there is little doubt that Harrison would have been influential in the development of his young nephew William Tomkin; living quite close to each other at this time. It is also conceivable that one of Harrison’s many contacts led to the young Tomkin being introduced to General Augustus Pitt Rivers.
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Since any earlier nomenclature prevails over subsequent nomenclatures, the genus Anthropopithecus definitely lost its validity in 1895,P. K. Tubbs, "Opinion 1368 The generic names Pan and Panthera (Mammalia, Carnivora): available as from Oken, 1816", Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature (1985), volume 42, pp 365-370 becoming from that date a junior synonym of the genus Pan.According to the current international consensus, the genus Pan includes two species: the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo or dwarf chimpanzee (Pan paniscus). In 1879,Pôle international de la Préhistoire "Le Préhistorique, antiquité de l'homme / Gabriel de Mortillet" the French archaeologist and anthropologist Gabriel de Mortillet (1821–1898) proposed the term Anthropopithecus to designate a "missing link", a hypothetical intermediate between ape and man that lived in the Tertiary and that supposedly, following De Mortillet's theory, produced eoliths.
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Gabriel de Mortillet, Le Préhistorique, antiquité de l'homme, Bibliothèque des sciences contemporaines, 2nd edition, Paris, C. Reinwald, 1885, 642 p. In his work of 1883 Le Préhistorique, antiquité de l'homme (The Prehistoric: Man's Antiquity, below quoted after the 2nd edition, 1885), De Mortillet writes: When in 1905 the French paleontologist, paleoanthropologist and geologist Marcellin Boule (1861–1942) published a paper demonstrating that the eoliths were in fact geofacts produced by natural phenomena (freezing, pressure, fire), the argument proposed by De Mortillet fell into disrepute and his definition of the term Anthropopithecus was dropped.Marcellin Boule, "L'origine des éolithes", L'Anthropologie (1905), tome 16, pp. 257–267 Yet the chimpanzee meaning of the genus persisted throughout the 19th century, even to the point of being a genus name attributed to fossil specimens.
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