type; but it is a remarkable fact that the three specimens figured on Pl. XVI may be claimed as characteristic forms of the Moustérien epoch. On Fig. 10 the outline of one of the Piltdown series (A) is placed beside one (B) from the cave of Le Moustier (Reliq. Aquitanicæ, A. Pl. III). The operator in each case first chipped a portion of the surface of a selected nodule, then with one well-directed blow he struck off a large flake, having one surface worked and the other flat. This method was invented posterior to the use of the coup-de-poing, and the resulting tool being abundant in Le Moustier, it has been regarded as characteristic of the Moustérien epoch. As a workable tool it was found to be an improvement on the former, having a sharp cutting edge and requiring less labour in its manufacture. Besides, those finely chipped, thin and oval specimens, prevalent in Acheuléen stations, were more easily broken. The Moustérien flake is known to French archæologists as le grand éclat Levallois, from its abundance in the station of that name near Paris. During the Moustérien epoch its usefulness was so much appreciated that it almost entirely superseded the coup-de-poing, which so largely dominated the flint industry of the Chelléen and Acheuléen epochs. In opposition to the late G. de Mortillet, M. Rutot holds that the Levallois flakes are to be found in all deposits containing specimens of the coup-de-poing (Congrès de Dinant, Session XVIII, p. 150).
