The Geological Evidence of The Antiquity of Man

SOMME-C

, with Flint Impleme

Shells

flumi

mal

leton of R

y found low down in

fting thei

higher and lowe

Alluvium of

ant and Hippopotamus

Fra

roving Antiquity o

s in tool-bearing All

nds of negative Evi

found in drained

modern, or the peat, which is marked Number 1, and which has been treated of in the last chapter. Next in the order of antiquity are the lower-level gravels, Number 2,

though in every adjoining pit some minor variations in the nature and thickness of the superimposed deposits may be seen, there is yet a general approach to uniformity in the series. The only stratum of which the relative age is somewhat doubtful, is the gravel marked a, underlying the peat, and resting on the Chalk. It is only

Number 3, often near the bottom, and twenty-five, thirty,

mber 3 were thrown down, and that after the deposits Numbers 3, 2, and 1 had been formed in succession, the present valley was scooped out, patches only of Numbers 3

OF FLUVIO-MARINE STR

S OF EXTINCT MAMMAL

EVI

ctions and maps of

ophical Transactio

gular flints, and occ

wing the slope of t

very varying thickn

upwa

uff-coloured, resembl

in some places wi

taining freshwater

ts, etc.; thickn

beds of gravel, m

shells, and, in some

hells; also bones of

mplements; thickn

rlying peat, a

clay, separating the

ng that the sea sometimes gained upon the river, whether at high tides or when the fresh water was less in quantity during the dry season, and sometimes perhaps when the land was slightly

white and siliceous sand, containing shells of the genera Planorbis, Limnea, Paludina, Valvata, Cyclas, Cyrena, Helix, and others, all now natives of the same part of France, except Cyrena fluminalis (Figure 17), which no longer lives in Europe, but inhabits the Nile, and many p

na fluminalis, O

S. Woodward "Tibet

ical Society"

t valve, from Gray

f the same

valve of a small spec

nd

of right valve, f

DATES OF SP

1: SP

N 2:

VI

inalis, O.F.

is Euphratis,

hratica, L

, Lam. (Ni

rina, Caillau

shmiriens

minalis, Muhl

SS

nula, S. Woo

ellarii, Ph

hastelii,

these I have myself collected entire, though in a state of great decomposition, lying in the white sand called "sable aigre" by the workmen. They are all littoral species now proper to the contiguous coast of France. Their occurrence

toire des Progres"

5

abricators of the flint hatchets found at the bottom of the fluvio-marine sands. From the same beds, and in

cient alluvial plain of that day. Some land shells, a few river shells, and bones of mammalia, some of them extinct, occur in Number 2. Its upper surface has been deeply furrowed and cut into by the action of water, at the time when the

het shown in Figure 9, of an oval form. It was extracted from gravel, above which were strata containing a mixture of marine and freshwater shells, precisely like those of Menchecourt. In the alluvium of all parts of the valley, both at high a

ing been found in the deposits Numbers 2

s prim

ros tic

ossilis

rimig

omonensi

us priscu

s sp

a spe

s. The same palaeontologist, after a close scrutiny of the bones sent formerly to the Paris Museum from the valley of the Somme, observed that some of them bore the evident marks of an instrument, agreein

al of the Geologica

page

says: "They begin to meet with fossil bones at the depth of 10 or 12 feet in the Menchecourt sand-pits, but they find a much greater quantity at the depth of 18 and 20 feet. Some of them were evidently broken before they were embedded, others are rounded, having, without doubt, been rolled by running water. It is at the bottom of the sand-pits that the most entire bones occur. Here they lie without having undergone

Emulation d'Abbevil

2 (Figure 16), a deposit from tranquil water, or where the stream had not sufficient force or velocity to sweep along Chalk flints, whether wrought or unwrought. Hence we have almost always to pass down through a mass of incumbent loam with land shells, or through fine sand with freshwater molluscs, before we get into the beds of gravel containing hatchets. Occasionally a weapon used as a projectile may ha

sionally inundated. In this way, after much encroachment on cliff or meadow at certain points, we find at the end of centuries that the width of the channel has not been enlarged, for the new made ground is raised after a time to the average height of the older alluvial tract. Sometimes an island is formed in midstream, the current flowing for a while on both sides of it, and at length scooping out a deeper channel on one side so as to leave the other to be gradually filled up during freshets and afterwards elevated by inundation mud, or

weapons of the Roman period were brought up by the dredge from the bed of the great river. The decomposition of the iron had caused much of the gravel to be cemented together into a conglomerate. In such a case we have only to suppose the Rhine to deviate slightly

roper both to running and stagnant water may be preserved, and quadrupeds may be mired. The latest and uppermost deposit of the series will be loam or brick-earth, with land and amphibious shells (Helix and Succinea),

on the banks of the Mersey, old ships were dug out, as I have elsewhere noticed,*

eology" 10th editio

nnel in the neighbourhood is now 60 feet deep, but there is probably 10 or 15 feet of stratified sand and gravel at the bottom; so that, should the river deviate again from its course, its present bed might be the receptacle of a fluvio-marine formation 75 feet thick, equal to the former one of Shoeburyness, and more considerable than that of Abbeville. It would consist both of freshwater and marine strata, as the salt water i

period. As a stratum containing exclusively land and freshwater shells usually underlies the fluvio-marine sands at Menchecourt, it seems that the river first prevailed there, after which the land subsided; and then there was an upheaval wh

alk. One of these occurs in the suburbs of the city at Moulin Quignon, 100 feet above the Somme and on the same side of the valley as Menchecourt, and containing flint implements

the bones of fossil quadrupeds occur at all heights above the present rivers from 10 to 1000 feet, we observe the terrestrial fauna to depart in character from that now living in proportion as we ascend to higher terraces and platforms. We pass from the lower alluvium, containing the mammoth, tichorhine rhinoceros, and reindeer, to various older groups of fossil

ng pauses, would very well account for the accumulation of stratified debris which we encounter at certain points in the valley, especially around Abbeville and Amiens. But we are precluded from adopting this theory by the entire absence of marine shells, and the presence of freshwater and land species, and mammalian bones, in considerable abundance, in the drift bo

GRAVEL NEAR AMIENS.

exception of the absence of marine shells and of Cyrena fluminalis. We find lower-level gravel, such as Number 2, Figure 7, and higher-level alluvium, such as Number 3, the latter rising to 100 feet above the plain, which at Amiens is abo

* Elephas p

lower jaw, right

eistocene. Co-ex

Elephas antiq

ower jaw, right side

nd Newer Pliocene.

Elephas merid

ower jaw, right side

ene, Saint Prest,

et proved to have c

am indebted to M. L

his paper in "Bul

" March 1859. Figure

y "Fauna S

roduced by blows skilfully applied. Some of these knives were taken from so low a level as to satisfy us that this great bed of gravel at Montiers, as well as that of the contiguous quarries of St. Roch, which seems to be a continuation of the same deposit, may be referred to the human period. Dr. Rigollot had already mentioned flint hatchets as obtained by him from St. Roch, but as none have been found there of late years, his statement was though

ascend the Chalk slope to the height of about 80 feet, another deposit of gravel and sand, with fluviatile shells in a perfect condition, occurs, indicating most clearly an ancient river-bed, the waters of which ran habitually at that higher level

k, covered with gravel, topped as usual with loam or fine sediment, the surf

h of 8 or 9 feet from the surface, entering the upper part of Number 3 of the sections Figures 21 and 22. They prove that when the Romans were in Gaul they found this terrac

OF GRAVEL PIT CONTAI

EAR AMIENS, OBSE

and made ground,

ome angular flints,

illing up indentat

r 3, 3 f

nd with layers of cha

for the most part

whitish chalky sand

gments, 3 inches di

flints intermixed,

mammalia, grinder o

ent at c, 10

k with

t's molar, 11 feet

ephas primigenius, 17

nt hatchet, 18 fee

of unstratified sandy loam at the point a, 11 feet from the surface. This was found at the time of my visit; and at a lower point, at b, 18 feet from the surface, a large

the chalky sand, sometimes occurring in interstices between the separate fragments of flint, constituting the coarse gravel Number 4, entire as well as broken freshwater shells are often met with. To some it may appear enigmatical how such fragile objects could have escaped annihilation in a river-bed, when flint tools and much gravel were shoved along the bottom

terials of the gravel at d must have been cemented or frozen together into a somewhat coherent mass to allow the projecting ridge, d, to stand up 5 feet above the general surfac

alluvial deposits, ancient or modern, are there any fragments of rocks foreign to the basin of the Somme-no erratics which could only be e

miens and at the higher level at Abbeville. They have also been traced far up the valley above Amiens, wherever patches of the old alluvium occur. They have all been derived from the Tertiary strata which once covered the Chalk. Their dimensions are such that it is impossible to imagine a river like the present Somme, flowing through a flat country, with a gentle fall towards the sea, to have carried them for miles down its channel unless ice co-operated as a transporting power. Their angularity also favours t

f Geology" 9th e

RTED FLUVIATILE S

ophical Transaction

rface

in Figure 21, t

ent and folded layer

fe

ure 21, with bones o

lem

with made groun

nated marl often bent

ravel with s

St. Acheul, deserves notice. It consists in flexures and contortions of the strata of sand, marl, and gravel (as seen at b, c, and d, Figure 22), which they hav

melting of masses of ice and snow of unequal thickness, on which horizontal layers of mud, sand, and other fine and coarse materials had accumulated. The late Mr. Trimmer firs

chapt

der or over one another, assume in most cases a highly inclined and sometimes even a vertical position. They are often observed to be coated on one

avel, which result from their liquefaction, cannot fail to assume a very abnormal arrangement-very per

-ice may have had its influence in modi

ir read to Royal S

ion begins frequently at the bottom; the reason being, according to Arago, that the current is slowest there, and the gravel and large stones, having parted with much of their heat by radiation, acquire a temperature below the average of the main body of the river

e, a subject to which I shall have occasion again to allude in the sequel, I will state in this place that such contortions, whether explicable or not, are very characteristic of glacial formations. They h

e those American Indians who now inhabit the country between Hudson's Bay and the Polar Sea. The habits of those Indians have been well described by Hearne, who spent some years among them. As often as deer and other game become scarce on the land, they betake themselves to fishing in the rivers; and for this purpose, and also to obtain water f

bove the present valley-plain, in those earlier times when the flint tools of the antique type were buried in successive river beds. I have said at various levels, because there are, here and there, patches of drift at heights intermediate between the higher and lower gravel, and also some deposits

e same spots for hundreds or thousands of years in succession, the number of the stone implements lost in the bed of the river need not surprise us. Ice-chisels, flint hatchets, and spear-heads may have slipped accidentally through holes kept constantly open, and the recovery of a lost treasure once sunk in the bed of the ice-bound stream, inevitably swept away with gravel on t

o my friend M. Deshayes at Paris, he declared them to be, without exception, the same as those now living in the basin of the Seine. This fact may seem at first sight to imply that the climate had not altered since the flint to

aper read to the Ro

lower gravels (those of Menchecourt, for example) was more genial than that of the higher ones. Mr. Prestwich inclines to this opinion. None of those contortions of the strata above described have as yet been observed in the lower drift. It contains large blocks of Tertiary sandstone and grit

ions, and our information respecting the entire fauna is still so imperfect, that it would be premature to pretend to settle this question in the present state of our knowledge. We must be content with the conclusion (and it is one of no smal

evel gravels of St. Roch. This species, therefore, endured while important changes took place in the geographical condition of the valley of the Somme. Assuming the lower-level gravel to be the newer, it follows that the Elep

ly affirm that Man was as old an inhabitant of this region as were any of the fossil quadrupeds above enumerated, a

ame end. No naturalist would for a moment suppose that the extermination of the Cyrena fluminalis throughout the whole of Europe-a species which co-existed with our race in the valley of the Somme, and which was very abundant in the waters of the Thames at the time when the eleph

e interval of time which separated the era of the large extinct mammalia from that of the earliest peat, was of far longer duration than that of the entire growth of the peat. Yet we by no means need the evidence of the ancient fossil fauna to establish the antiquity of Man in this part of France. The mere volume of the drift at various heights would alone suffice to demonstrate a vast lapse of time during which such heaps of shingle, derived both from the Eocene and the Cretaceous rocks, were thr

UMAN BONES IN THE A

he Pleistocene period has been investigated in valley deposits. Yet in these same formations there is no want of bones of mammalia belonging to extinct and living species. In the course of the last quarter of a century, thousands of them have been submitted to the examination of skilful osteologists, and they have been unable to detect among them one fragment of a human skel

h belonged to that population by which so many weapons were designed and executed, affords a most striking and instructive lesson in regard to the value of negative evidence, when adduced in proof of the non-existence of certain classes o

that the first skull of the musk ox (Bubalus moschatus) was detected in the fossiliferous gravel of the Thames, and not till 1860, as will be seen in the next chapter, that the same quadruped was proved to have co-existed in France with the mammoth. The same theory which wil

of their prey, sometimes leave their remains in the same deposits, but more rarely. The whole assemblage of fossil quadrupeds at present obtained from the alluvi

y valley. To prevent this inconvenience she employs the heat and moisture of the sun and atmosphere, the dissolving power of carbonic and other acids, the grinding teeth and gastric juices of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fish, and the agency of many of the invertebrata. We are all familiar with the efficacy of these and other causes on the land; and as to the bottoms of seas, we have only to read the published reports of Mr.

OF HA

d it into a canal running for 20 or 30 miles round the newly-gained land. This land was depressed 13 feet beneath the mean level of the ocean. I travelled, in 1859, over part of the bed of this old lake, and found it already converted into arable land, and peopled by an agricultural population of 5000 souls.

the great canal, a fine section had been laid open, about 30 miles long, of the deposits which formed the ancient bottom of the lake. Trenches, also, innumerable, several feet deep, had been freshly dug on all the farms, and their united length must have amounted to thousands of miles. In some

rn times, brought with foreign timber in the holds of vessels from the rivers flowing into the Black S

. In a peaty tract on the margin of one part of the lake a few coins were dug up; but if history had been silent, and if there had been a controversy whether Man was already a denizen of this planet at the time when the area o

of the humic and sulphuric acids to dissolve bones, the peat in question being plentifully impregnated with such acids. His theory may be correct, but it is not applicable to the gravel of the valley of the

and ox. But even if those rude hunters had cherished a superstitious veneration for the Somme, and had regarded it as a sacred river (as the modern Hindoos revere the Ganges), and had been in the hab

ing carried into the sea and devoured, it is enveloped with fluviatile mud and sand, the next flood, if it lie in mid-channel, may tear it out again, scatter all the bones, roll some of them into pebbles, and leave others exposed to destroying agencies; and this may be repeated annually, till all vestiges of the skeleton may disappear