A Manual of the Antiquity of Man Part 3

_d._ Gravel projecting five feet.]

At St. Acheul, in bed No. 4, were found large numbers of flint implements. Some of them have the shape of a spear-head, and are over seven inches in length. The oval-shaped hatchets are so rude in some instances as to require a practised eye to decide their human origin. In the same bed are found small round bodies having a tubular cavity in the centre. Dr. Rigollot has suggested that these perforated stones or gravel were used as ornaments, possibly strung together as beads.

In this bed, No. 4, seventeen feet from the surface, was found a mammoth's tooth. About one foot below the tooth, in densely compressed gravel, was found a stone hatchet of an oval form.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5. FLINT IMPLEMENT FROM ST. ACHEUL.

Half the size of the original, which is seven and a half inches long.

_a._ Side view.

_b._ Same seen edgewise.

"These spear-headed implements have been found in greater number, proportionally to the oval ones, in the upper level gravel at St.

Acheul, than in any of the lower gravels in the valley of the Somme. In these last, the oval form predominates, especially at Abbeville."--_Antiquity of Man_, p. 114.]

That this bed was formed by action of glaciers is shown, not only from the well-rounded tertiary pebbles, but also from the great blocks of hard sandstone, some of which are over four feet in diameter. These large fragments not only abound at St. Acheul in both the higher and lower level gravels at Amiens, and at the higher level at Abbeville, but they are also traced far up the valley wherever the old diluvium occurs.

All of these sandstones have been derived from the tertiary strata which once covered the chalk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6. FLINT IMPLEMENT FROM ABBEVILLE.

_a._ Oval-shaped flint hatchet from Mautort near Abbeville, half size of original, which is five and a half inches long, from a bed of gravel underlying the fluvio-marine stratum.

_b._ Same seen edgewise.

_c._ Shows a recent fracture of the edge of the same at the point _a_, or near the top. This portion of the tool, _c_, is drawn of the natural size, the black central part being the unaltered flint, the white outer coating, the layer which has been formed by discoloration or bleaching since the tool was first made.

The entire surface of Figure 6 must have been black when first shaped, and the bleaching to such a depth must have been the work of time, whether produced by exposure to the sun and air before it was imbedded, or afterward when it lay deep in the soil.--_Antiquity of Man._]

As the flint implements of Abbeville and Amiens are the same as those of St. Acheul, and from the same beds, what has already been said will apply to them. These implements have been found in these localities in great numbers, as several thousand of them already taken from the beds will amply testify.

From the gravel-pit in which were found the flint axes, at Abbeville, and close to the ancient chalk, was taken the celebrated human bone known as the _jaw_ of Moulin-Quignon. It was cotemporary with the axes, and undoubtedly some of the flint implements there found were fas.h.i.+oned by the man of whom that jaw formed so necessary a part.

This jaw-bone belonged to an old man, and is described as displaying "a tendency toward the animal structure in the shortness and breadth of the ascending ramus (the perpendicular portion of the lower jaw), the equal height of the two apophyses (a process or regular prominence forming a continuous part of the body of the bone), the indication of prognathism (projecting jaw) furnished by the very obtuse angle at which the ramus joins the body of the bone.[14]

Near the same locality other human bones were discovered Which presented the same characteristics.

Boucher de Perthes having pointed out that flint implements could be found in the valley of the Seine, in beds similar to those of Abbeville, the antiquaries were soon rewarded and Boucher de Perthes' prediction was fulfilled. M. Gosse, of Geneva, found the Abbeville type of implements in the lowest diluvial deposits a.s.sociated with the remains of animals of that period.

The discovery made by Casiano de Prado, near Madrid, is very similar to those of Abbeville. "First, vegetable soil; then about twenty-five feet of sand and pebbles, under which was a layer of sandy loam, in which, during the year 1850, a complete skeleton of the mammoth was discovered.

Underneath this stratum was about ten feet of coa.r.s.e gravel, in which some flint axes, very closely resembling those of Amiens, have been discovered."[15]

The remains of man are also preserved in caverns a.s.sociated with the fossil bones of the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, cave-bear, and other extinct quadrupeds. Among these should be noticed Kent's Hole, which has furnished a mine of wealth. Of his discoveries G.o.dwin-Austen says: "Human remains and works of art, such as arrow-heads and knives of flint, occur in all parts of the cave, and throughout the entire thickness of the clay; and no distinction founded on condition, distribution, or relative position can be observed, whereby the human can be separated from the other reliquiae," which included bones of the mammoth (_E. primigenius_), rhinoceros (_R. tichorrhinus_), cave-bear (_Ursus spelaeus_), cave-hyena (_H. spelaeus_), and other mammalia. These researches were conducted in parts of the cave which had never been disturbed, and the works of man, in every instance, were procured from undisturbed loam or clay, beneath a thick covering of stalagmite; and all these must have been introduced before the stalagmite flooring had been formed.[16] These specimens of man's handicraft were found far below the stalagmite floor.[17] Closely allied to Kent's Hole is Brixham Cave. The following gives the general succession of deposits forming the contents of the cavern:

1. A layer of stalagmite varying from one to fifteen inches in thickness.

2. Next below, ochreous cave-earth, from one foot to fifteen feet in thickness.

3. Rounded gravel, in some places more than twenty feet in depth.

In the second layer there were found the remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, cave-bear, cave-hyena, cave-lion, reindeer, and seven other species. Indiscriminately mixed with these bones were found many flint knives, but chiefly from the lowest part of the ochreous cave-earth, varying in depth from ten inches to thirteen feet. The antiquity of these cannot be doubted, from the simple fact, even if there was no other, that in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool was discovered the entire left hind leg of a cave-bear, and every bone in its natural position. From the bone earth there were taken fifteen knives, recognized, by the experienced antiquaries, as having been artificially formed. In the lowest gravel, underlying all, there were found imperfect specimens of flint knives. The fine layer of mud was deposited by the slow but regular action of water. Since these layers were formed the stream has cut its channel seventy-eight feet below its former level.[18]

On both banks of the Meuse, at Maestricht (Hollerd) are terraces of gravel covered with loess. Below the city, on the left bank, one of these terraces projects into the alluvial plain of the Meuse. During the construction of the ca.n.a.l the terrace was opened to a depth of sixty feet. The upper twenty feet consisted of loess and the lower forty feet of stratified gravel. Great numbers of molars, tusks, and bones of elephants, together with those of other mammalia, and a human lower jaw with teeth, were found in or near this gravel. The human jaw was at a depth of nineteen feet from the surface, in a stratum of sandy loam, beneath a stratum of pebbly and sandy beds, and immediately above the gravel. The stratum from which the jaw was taken was intact and had never been disturbed. But the jaw was somewhat isolated, and the nearest fossil object was the tusk of an elephant six yards distant, though on a horizontal plane. This fossil is probably older than that discovered at Lahr. It was probably covered just before the gush of the water when it first began to flow from the gorges and had washed the ground at some distance from the ice.[19]

The human skeleton from the undisturbed loess of the Rhine, near Lahr, was found in nearly a horizontal position, but in such a manner as to forbid the idea of sepulchre. These bones were exhumed from a perpendicular cliff of solid loess, about five feet high. The town of Lahr is situated four miles from, and about one hundred feet above, the Rhine, and not far from the tributary valley drained by the Schutter, flowing from the Black Forest.

In the alluvial plain into which the Schutter flows the the loess is two hundred feet thick. The loess rises eighty feet above the Schutter. At Lahr it has been denuded so as to form a succession of terraces on the right bank. It was in the lowest of these from which the skeleton was taken. Immediately below this bed there were found pebbles, and still lower down was a bed of gravel containing rounded stones of sandstone and gneiss from the Black Forest.

There are several interesting facts connected with this discovery. M.

Boue considers that the loess of the Lahr is continuous with that of the Rhine, and before the loess had been denuded there was not less than eighty feet of loamy deposit above the human skeleton. The glaciers had deposited their great gravel beds, and had began to melt. The melting of them had formed a mixture of loam and gravel. Then when the torrents poured forth from the glaciers the loam was formed without the pebbles.

The unfortunate man, whose remains were found, was buried far beneath the surface, during the very first part of the course of the violent streams pouring forth from the field of ice. The glaciers were then on the retreat, and the incautious man probably fell a victim while on the chase.[20]

The cave of La Naulette, Belgium, afforded a jaw-bone similar to the Moulin-Quignon. The bone came from a river deposit of loam covered with a layer of stalagmite, and at a depth of thirteen feet from the surface.

a.s.sociated with it were the remains of the mammoth, woolly-haired rhinoceros, and flint implements. These implements present the same type as those of St. Acheul. With this jaw were also found a human ulna, two human teeth, and a fragment of a worked reindeer born. This jaw-bone is very thick, round in form, and the projection of the chin is almost entirely absent. The chin is said to hold an intermediate position between that of the animals and those of the present race of men. The cavities for the reception of the canine teeth are very wide, and one of the most remarkable things is that the three molars are reversed, that is the first true molar is the smallest, and the last the largest. The inner surface of the jaw at the point of the suture or symphysis, forms a line obliquely directed upwards. Taking the jaw all in all, it is the most ape-like human jaw ever discovered.[21]

The flint implements from Hoxne were found under three different layers or beds. The first, vegetable, a foot and a half in depth. The second was clay, seven and a half feet thick. The third, a bed of sand, with sh.e.l.ls one foot in thickness. The fourth layer, containing the implements was a bed of gravel two feet in depth. The number of these flints was so great that they were carried out by the baskets-full, and thrown into the ruts of the adjoining road. On account of the great number, this spot might have been the place where they were manufactured. Their date is not coeval with the bowlder clay, but undoubtedly belong, to the last of this epoch.

The human bones found in the loess of the Rhine, near Colmar, were two fossilized fragments of the skull. They were found in undisturbed soil along with the fossil bones of the extinct species of mammoth, horse, gigantic deer, aurochs, and other mammalia. The fragment of the skull "showed a depressed forehead, strongly projecting superciliary arches, and a type, on the whole, approaching the so-called _dolichocephalic_, or long-headed form."[22] These remains date so near the end of the glacial as to almost enter the inter-glacial.

CHAPTER III.

GLACIAL EPOCH--CONTINUED.

_Belgian Caverns._--The relics discovered by Dr. Schmerling, in the caves of Belgium, must be referred to the time of the retreat of the glaciers. The glaciers were still in existence, but their receding had freed immense tracts of land, and the s.p.a.ce they now covered was small in proportion to their former extent. Whether it be considered or not, that vegetation greatly nourished and the great wild beasts were rapidly increasing, one thing must be noticed, and that is, floods must have succeeded or followed closely upon the retreat of the ice. Many remains, referred to the glacial epoch, may in reality, have occupied the time of the floods occurring just previous to the commencement of the inter-glacial.

The Belgian Caverns, near Liege, either belong exactly to the ice, or else to a period not far removed. Lyell considers the older monuments of the palaeolithic period to be the rude implements found in ancient river gravel and in the mud and stalagmite caves.[23] Caves of this description are those reported on by Dr. Schmerling.

The caverns of the province of Liege were not the dens of wild beasts, but their contents had been swept in by the action of water. The bones of man "were of the same color, and in the same condition as to the amount of animal matter contained in them, as those of the accompanying animals, some of which, like the cave-bear, hyena, elephant, and rhinoceros, were extinct; others, like the wild-cat, beaver, wild boar, roe-deer, wolf, and hedgehog, still extant. The fossils were lighter than fresh bones, except such as had their pores filled with carbonate of lime, in which case they were often much heavier. The human remains of most frequent occurrence were teeth detached from the jaw, and the carpal, metacarpal, tarsal, metatarsal, and phalangial bones separated from the rest of the skeleton. The corresponding bones of the cave-bear, the most abundant of the accompanying mammalia, were also found in the Liege caverns more commonly than any others, and in the same scattered condition."[24] In some of these caves, rude flint implements, of a triangular form, were found dispersed through the cave mud. Dr.

Schmerling did not pay much attention to these, as he was engrossed in his osteological inquiries. The human bones were met with at all depths, in the cave mud and gravel, both above and below those of the extinct mammalia.

The floors of these caverns were incrusted with stalagmite.[25] In the cavern at Chokier there occur "three distinct beds of stalagmite, and between each of them a ma.s.s of breccia, and mud mixed with quartz pebbles, and in the three deposits the bones of extinct quadrupeds."[26]

FOSSIL SKULL OF THE ENGIS CAVE NEAR LIEGE.

The fossil skull from the cavern of Engis was deposited at a depth of about five feet, under an osseous breccia containing a tusk of the rhinoceros, the teeth of the horse, and the remains of small animals.

The breccia was about three and one-fourth feet wide, and rose to the height of about five feet above the floor of the cavern. In the earth which contained the skull there was found, surrounding it on all sides, the teeth of the rhinoceros, horse, hyena, and bear, and with no marks of the earth having been disturbed.

There was also found the cranium of a young person, in the floor of the cavern, besides an elephant's tooth. When first observed, the skull was entire, but fell to pieces when removed from its position. Besides these there were found a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, with the molar teeth worn down to the roots, indicating that of an old man; two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal; a clavicle of the left side, belonging to a young individual of great stature; two fragments of the radius, indicating a man of ordinary height; a fragment of an ulna: some metacarpal bones; six metatarsal, three phalanges of the hand and one of the foot.

Dr. Schmerling found in this cave a pointed bone implement incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a stone.

Of the Engis skull Professor Huxley has remarked, "As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, the parts in the immediate neighborhood of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a considerable portion of the squamous element of the temporal, are well preserved."

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by Dr. Spring, the accomplished anatomist of Liege.