Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island
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natural surfaces, especially good on the strip left between the two flaked areas above this third patina is a pronounced brownish red. Thus the original implement must have been more like figure N from HSY and probably had a rounded hand-grip surface covered with the natural skin of the pebble, one flat surface (probably at the back) and a more pronounced trihedral angle below with the ridge more central than now. It was Professor Henri Breuil who pointed out to me the difference of patina and the reworking: that authority is decisive. He regarded the patina on the typical specimen fo our local coup-de-poing (faust-keil) or cleaver or scraper "epimiolith" as incontrovertible proof that they are considerably older than the local neolithic stone-axes from the same sites: this specimen then must be older still. The logical inference is that there is no ground for any generalized argument for dating by reason of the find-spot on such sites as these where we find "epimioliths" and polished axes, pottery of various types and even bronzes at the same levels without any possibility of dis- criminating times of deposition.
X
K
373%.
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ក្នុង izrn,
X
X
5.cms.
K. "Epimiolith" showing three stages of patination. The oldest is represented in the sketch by the white surfaces: the next by the curved hatching: the most recent by the straight hatching.
I have used the word "epimiolith" above: it may be new to most of my readers and perhaps I should explain. The prefix "epi-" has been used by certain modern scholars, notably Menghin (30) pp. 84-5. to denote that a culture of the type indicated by the word used after "epi-" is in that particular case surviving into a period later by one than its own proper time: thus "epiprotolithic" would mean some culture whose forms were that of the Early Stone Age lasting on into the Mesolithic should the survival be drawn out longer Menghin would use the form "opsiprotolithic". Though our case is still sub judice, I use the word "epimiolith" to describe these objects. which must now be regarded as much older than neolithic: this is the name that Menghin would give to the Bacsonian of Indo-China and to the Asturian of Spain actually one type that I have got in several specimens is very like the Asturian hand-axes (coup-de-poings: there used for opening sea-shells)
July 1935.
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