Editing Three-age system (section)

=== Piette finds the Mesolithic ===
[[File:Mas-d'Azil-grotte 02.JPG|thumb|left|[[Mas-d'Azil]] Grotto]]
In that same year, 1872, Sir [[John Evans (archaeologist)|John Evans]] produced a massive work, ''The Ancient Stone Implements'', in which he in effect repudiated the Mesolithic, making a point to ignore it, denying it by name in later editions. He wrote:<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1872|p=12}}</ref>
<blockquote>Sir John Lubbock has proposed to call them the Archaeolithic, or Palaeolithic, and the Neolithic Periods respectively, terms which have met with almost general acceptance, and of which I shall avail myself in the course of this work.</blockquote>

Evans did not, however, follow Lubbock's general trend, which was typological classification. He chose instead to use type of find site as the main criterion, following Lubbock's descriptive terms, such as tools of the drift. Lubbock had identified drift sites as containing Palaeolithic material. Evans added to them the cave sites. Opposed to drift and cave were the surface sites, where chipped and ground tools often occurred in unlayered contexts. Evans decided he had no choice but to assign them all to the most recent. He therefore consigned them to the Neolithic and used the term "Surface Period" for it.

Having read Westropp, Sir John knew perfectly well that all the former's Mesolithic implements were surface finds. He used his prestige to quell the concept of Mesolithic as best he could, but the public could see that his methods were not typological. The less prestigious scientists publishing in the smaller journals continued to look for a Mesolithic. For example, [[Isaac Taylor (canon)|Isaac Taylor]] in ''The Origin of the Aryans'', 1889, mentions the Mesolithic but briefly, asserting, however, that it formed "a transition between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Isaac |title=The Origin of the Aryans. An Account of the Prehistoric Ethnology and Civilisation of Europe |publisher=C. Scribner's sones |year=1889 |location=New York |page=60}}</ref> Nevertheless, Sir John fought on, opposing the Mesolithic by name as late as the 1897 edition of his work.

Meanwhile, Haeckel had totally abandoned the geologic uses of the -lithic terms. The concepts of Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic had originated in the early 19th century and were gradually becoming coin of the geologic realm. Realizing he was out of step, Haeckel started to transition to the -zoic system as early as 1876 in ''The History of Creation'', placing the -zoic form in parentheses next to the -lithic form.<ref name="Haeckel15">{{Cite book |last1=Haeckel |first1=Ernst Heinrich Philipp August |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924089940419 |title=The history of creation, or, The development of the earth and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes : a popular exposition of the doctrine of evolution in general, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck in particular |last2=Lankester |first2=Edwin Ray |publisher=D. Appleton |year=1876 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924089940419/page/n35 15]}}</ref>

The gauntlet was officially thrown down before Sir John by J. Allen Brown, speaking for the opposition before the [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|Anthropological Institute]] on 8 March 1892. In the journal he opens the attack by striking at a "hiatus" in the record:<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1893|p=66}}</ref>
<blockquote>It has been generally assumed that a break occurred between the period during which ... the continent of Europe was inhabited by Palaeolithic Man and his Neolithic successor ... No physical cause, no adequate reasons have ever been assigned for such a hiatus in human existence ...</blockquote>

The main hiatus at that time was between British and French archaeology, as the latter had already discovered the gap 20 years earlier and had already considered three answers and arrived at one solution, the modern. Whether Brown did not know or was pretending not to know is unclear. In 1872, the very year of Evans' publication, [[Gabriel de Mortillet]] had presented the gap to the Congrès international d'Anthropologie at [[Brussels]]:<ref name="Piette236">{{harvnb|Piette|1895|p=236}}: "Entre le paléolithique et le neolithique, il y a une large et profonde lacune, un grand hiatus; ..."</ref>
<blockquote>Between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, there is a wide and deep gap, a large hiatus.</blockquote>

Apparently prehistoric man was hunting big game with stone tools one year and farming with domestic animals and ground stone tools the next. Mortillet postulated a "time then unknown ({{lang|fr|époque alors inconnue}})" to fill the gap. The hunt for the "unknown" was on. On 16 April 1874, Mortillet retracted.<ref>{{harvnb|Piette|1895|p=237}}</ref> "That hiatus is not real" (''{{lang|fr|Cet hiatus n'est pas réel}}''), he said before the ''Société d'Anthropologie'', asserting that it was an informational gap only. The other theory had been a gap in nature, that, because of the ice age, man had retreated from Europe. The information must now be found. In 1895 [[Édouard Piette]] stated that he had heard [[Édouard Lartet]] speak of "the remains from the intermediate period (''{{lang|fr|les vestiges de l'époque intermédiaire}}'')", which were yet to be discovered, but Lartet had not published this view.<ref name=Piette236 /> The gap had become a transition. However, asserted Piette:<ref>{{harvnb|Piette|1895|p=239}}: "J'ai eu la bonne fortune découvrir les restes de cette époque ignorée qui sépara l'àge [[magdalénien]] de celui des haches en pierre polie ... ce fut, au [[Mas-d'Azil]], en 1887 et en 1888 que je fis cette découverte."</ref>
<blockquote>I was fortunate to discover the remains of that unknown time which separated the Magdalenian age from that of polished stone axes ... it was, at [[Mas-d'Azil]] in 1887 and 1888 when I made this discovery.</blockquote>

He had excavated the type site of the [[Azilian]] culture, the basis of today's Mesolithic. He found it sandwiched between the Magdalenian and the Neolithic. The tools were like those of the Danish [[Midden|kitchen-middens]], termed the Surface Period by Evans, which were the basis of Westropp's Mesolithic. They were Mode 5 [[stone tool]]s, or [[microlith]]s. He mentions neither Westropp nor the Mesolithic, however. For him this was a "solution of continuity" ({{lang|fr|solution de continuité}}) To it he assigns the semi-domestication of dog, horse, cow, etc., which "greatly facilitated the work of Neolithic man" ({{lang|fr|a beaucoup facilité la tàche de l'homme néolithique}}). Brown in 1892 does not mention Mas-d'Azil. He refers to the "transition or 'Mesolithic' forms" but to him these are "rough hewn axes chipped over the entire surface" mentioned by Evans as the earliest of the Neolithic.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1893|pp=74–75}}.</ref> Where Piette believed he had discovered something new, Brown wanted to break out known tools considered Neolithic.