Editing Three-age system (section)

=== The elusive Mesolithic of Hodder Westropp ===
[[File:Arpón con microlitos.png|thumb|upright=0.8|Bone harpoon studded with microliths, a Mode 5 composite hunting implement]]
Sir John Lubbock's use of the terms Palaeolithic ("Old Stone Age") and Neolithic ("New Stone Age") were immediately popular. They were applied, however, in two different senses: geologic and anthropologic. In 1867–68 [[Ernst Haeckel]] in 20 public lectures in [[Jena]], entitled ''General Morphology'', to be published in 1870, referred to the Archaeolithic, the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic and the Caenolithic as periods in geologic history.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=6 August 1870 |title=Reviews |journal=The Medical Times and Gazette: A Journal of Medical Science, Literature, Criticism and News |location=London |publisher=John Churchill and Sons |volume=II}}</ref> He could only have got these terms from Hodder Westropp, who took Palaeolithic from Lubbock, invented Mesolithic ("Middle Stone Age") and Caenolithic instead of Lubbock's Neolithic. None of these terms appear anywhere, including the writings of Haeckel, before 1865. Haeckel's use was innovative.

Westropp first used Mesolithic and Caenolithic in 1865, almost immediately after the publication of Lubbock's first edition. He read a paper on the topic before the [[Anthropological Society of London]] in 1865, published in 1866 in the ''Memoirs''. After asserting:<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1866|p=288}}</ref>
<blockquote>Man, in all ages and in all stages of his development, is a tool-making animal.</blockquote>

Westropp goes on to define "different epochs of flint, stone, bronze or iron; ..." He never did distinguish the flint from the Stone Age (having realized they were one and the same), but he divided the Stone Age as follows:<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1866|p=291}}</ref>
# "The flint implements of the gravel-drift"
# "The flint implements found in Ireland and Denmark"
# "Polished stone implements"
These three ages were named respectively the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic and the Kainolithic. He was careful to qualify these by stating:<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1866|p=290}}</ref>
<blockquote>Their presence is thus not always an evidence of a high antiquity, but of an early and barbarous state; ...</blockquote>

Lubbock's savagery was now Westropp's barbarism. A fuller exposition of the Mesolithic waited for his 1872 book, ''Pre-Historic Phases'', which was dedicated to Lubbock. At that time he restored Lubbock's Neolithic and defined a Stone Age divided into three phases and five stages.

The First Stage, "Implements of the Gravel Drift", contains implements that were "roughly knocked into shape".<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1872|p=41}}</ref> His illustrations show Mode 1 and Mode 2 [[stone tool]]s, basically Acheulean handaxes. Today they are in the Lower Palaeolithic.

The Second Stage, "Flint Flakes" are of the "simplest form" and were struck off cores.<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1872|p=45}}</ref> Westropp differs in this definition from the modern, as Mode 2 contains flakes for scrapers and similar tools. His illustrations, however, show Modes 3 and 4, of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. His extensive lithic analysis leaves no doubt. They are, however, part of Westropp's Mesolithic.

The Third Stage, "a more advanced stage" in which "flint flakes were carefully chipped into shape", produced small arrowheads from shattering a piece of flint into "a hundred pieces", selecting the most suitable and working it with a punch.<ref>{{harvnb|Westropp|1872|p=53}}</ref> The illustrations show that he had microliths, or Mode 5 tools in mind. His Mesolithic is therefore partly the same as the modern.

The Fourth Stage is a part of the Neolithic that is transitional to the Fifth Stage: axes with ground edges leading to implements totally ground and polished. Westropp's agriculture is removed to the Bronze Age, while his Neolithic is pastoral. The Mesolithic is reserved to hunters.