Commont has recently made two important discoveries: (1) A very productive station at rue Cagny, and (2) an ancient paleolithic workshop at the base of the Tellier gravel-pit. In 1900 an excavation for a factory site was made near the first pits that produced so many Chellean and Acheulian implements for the early explorers. It covered an area of 30 by 55 meters. Here Commont found in three months' time 540 implements of the Chellean and Acheulian types and 500 various objects, such as flakes, nuclei, and small implements, made from chips. It is indeed rare that so many specimens have been found in valley deposits covering such a small area.
In the workshop near the base of the Tellier gravel-pit, Commont found (1) many flint nodules prepared for chipping (débitage) and showing traces of the beginning of chipping, (2) a quantity of flint cores (nuclei) of all dimensions, (3) hammerstones of various forms, for the most part only slightly used, (4) 5,000 flint chips, (5) large flakes prepared for the production of special types of implements, (6) small implements derived from the large flakes, and (7) large implements of various forms, some only partly finished or broken in the process of manufacture. The patina of the flints of this workshop is a white mat, different from that of the Acheulian above. At the top of the same deposit that covered the workshop, Commont found a series of implements without patina, made of black (flint) or grey flint, that looked as fresh as if they had been made yesterday. The fauna of this deposit includes Elephas antiquus, large horse, Bos.
Section of the Tellier quarry: (1) Lower sands and gravels, rude industry, eolithic and Strépyan facies; (2) red sands, paleolithic workshop showing transition from Chellean to Acheulian I; (3) upper part of limon rouge (red clay), Acheulian II with white patina; (4) thin layer of white sands (base of ergeron) replacing the usual flinty layer (cailloutis), Mousterian industry, and small Acheulian implements with bluish patina; (5) lower part of brick earth, Magdalenian industry; (6) at the top of the brick earth, neolithic.
The deposits of the Tellier pit are 10 meters thick, their base being about 44 meters above sea level. The section is the most complete and instructive one at Saint-Acheul, especially in respect to the upper layers, in these even surpassing the famous section at the exploitation Helin, near Spiennes, Belgium. In fact, each section not only confirms, but also supplements the story told by the other. In each, all the Quaternary epochs except the Brabantian are represented. A section of one will suffice therefore for both. I have chosen for illustration (fig. 3) the exploitation Helin explored by Rutot in 1902. In the Helin section the lower Quaternary is represented by two distinct eolithic horizons—the Mafflean and Mesvinian. Above these come the paleolithic horizons in regular order—
