Nova et Vetera: A Plea for a New Method in Palæolithic Archæology

Extract

On the 26th October, 1908, at the inaugural meeting of this Society, Dr. Allen Sturge, its first president, delivered his Presidential Address. In this he reviewed the situation of prehistory, and more especially of Palæolithic archæology, as it stood at that time, ten years after the death of Gabriel de Mortillet, and forty years after the death of Boucher de Perthes. Dr. Sturge concluded, incidentally, that this country was immeasurably behind France, Belgium, and Germany in the pursuit of our science, a reproach which the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia has since done much to remove. Three years later Colonel Underwood, Dr. Sturge's successor in this chair, gave a further brief outline of recent discoveries in Palæolithic archæology. The general aspect of the subject was thus temporarily exhausted, and the last thirteen Addresses have dealt with some particular aspect of prehistory, or with some special piece of work. To-day, within a few weeks of the twentieth birthday of our Society, I feel that the time has come when it is again legitimate to attempt a more general view. The twenty years which separate us from Dr. Sturge's first Presidential address have not perhaps been marked by any single startling discovery in the region of human palæontology, but they have brought us a great mass of new evidence, much of which is still imperfectly assimilated, and with this evidence they have brought the first signs of a new orientation of our science.