The Geological Evidence of The Antiquity of Man

OCENE

Cave containing Hyae

in Some

ower Peninsula

ros hem

Caves nea

ce part o

diterranean to the He

Human Period

ocene Date of Aurignac

ichorhinus e

t Mammalia and Work

gnac

uity of the sa

ITH EXTINCT MAMMALIA IN A

of the steep sloping bank. About ten years ago, a canal was made, several hundred yards in length, for the purpose of leading the waters of the Axe to a paper-mill, now occupying the middle of the ravine. In carrying out this work, about 12 feet of the left bank was cut away, and a cavernous fissure, choked up to the roof with ossiferous loam, was then, for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, originally 9 feet high and 36 wide, traversed the Dolomitic Conglomerate; and fragments of that rock, some angular and others water-worn, were scattered through the red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were abundant. F

taken out of the undisturbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a hyaena's tooth, showing that Man had either been contemporaneous with or had preceded the extinct fauna. After penetratin

Proceedings of the

ary

nvinced that a complete revolution must have taken place in the topography of the district since the time of t

IN GLAMORGANSHI

e Dr. Falconer's skilled eye has recognised the remains of almost every quadruped which he had elsewhere found fossil in British caves: in some places the Elephas primigenius, accompanied by its usual companion, the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, in others Elep

s in a district where there is now scarce a rill of running water, much less a river in which such quadrupeds could swim. In one of the cave

of the variety called Cervus Guettardi, were extracted by the persevering exertions of Colonel

s, and with angular fragments of limestone, and all enveloped in the same ochreous mud. Among the ot

and R. hemitoechus, Falconer, in an undisturbed deposit, in the lower part of which were some well-shaped flint knives, evidently of human workmanship. It is clear from their position that Man was coeval with these two species. We ha

r. Falconer, in a memoir which he is now preparing for the press on the European Pliocene and Pleistocene species of the genus Rhinoceros, has

Cuvier, founded on Cortesi's Monte Zago cranium, and the ONLY Pliocene, or Pl

ranial and dental characters distinguishing it from R. tichorhinus, accompanies Elephas antiquus in most of the oldest British bone-cav

ptum,* occurs deep in the Val d'Arno deposits, and in the "Forest bed," and superimposed blue clay

erly Journal of the

5 1859 p

on in harmony with what we have since learnt from the section of the gravels near Bedford, given above (Figure 23), where a fauna corresponding to that of the Welsh c

lume 16 186

n that not only the Cervus megaceros, but also the mammoth and other exti

Geological Survey"

e are raised beaches on the adjoining coast, and other geological signs of great alteration in the relative level of land and

VES IN THE NO

appear the entrances of several caves. In that of San Ciro, on the east side of the bay, we find at the bottom sand with marine shells, forty species of which have been examined, and found almost all to agree specifically with mollusca now inhabiting the Mediterranean. Higher in position, and resting on the sand, is a breccia, composed of pieces of limestone, quartz, and schist in a matrix of brown marl, through which land shells are dispersed, together with bones of two species of hippopotamus, as determined by Dr. Falconer. Certain bones of the skeleton were counted in such numbers as to prove that they must have belonged to seve

rom above, through crevices in the limestone. In this upper and newer breccia Dr. Falconer discovered flint knives, bone splinters, bits of charcoal, burnt clay, and other objects indicating human intervention, mingled with entire land shells, teeth of horses, coprolites of hyaenas, and other bones, the whole agglutinated to one another and to the roof by the infiltration of water holding lime in solution. The perfect condition of the large fragile helices (H

al of the Geologica

page

ecies in the neighbouring grotto of Olivella. In reference to this elephant, Dr. Falconer has reminded us that the distance between the nearest part of Sicily and the coast of Africa, between Marsala and Cape Bon, is not more than 80 miles, and

"Presidential Addr

" 1861

hich are already known to have taken place within the human period on the borders of the Medite

THE HEIGHT OF 300 FEET, IN T

, at Cagliari and in the neighbourhood, an ancient bed of the sea, containing marine shells of living species, and numerous fra

ique" volume 1 pa

e abound. The mussels are often in such numbers as to impart, when they have decomposed, a violet colour to the marine stratum. Besides pieces of coarse pottery, a flattened ball of baked earthenware, with a hole th

ati, and figured by Count de la Marmora in his Atlas (Plate 7), also an extinct species of Lagomys, determined by Cuvier in 1825. Embedded in the same bone-breccia, and enveloped with red earth like the mammalian remains, were detected shells of the Mytilus edulis before mentioned, implying t

if we simply confine our estimate to the upheaval above the sea-level, without allowing for the original depth of water in which the mollusca lived. Even then our calculation w

are now high and dry above the sea, while at its eastern end it has sunk so much that the ruins of old towns are seen under water. Revolutions like these in the physical geog

ABITS OF THE

as other bones of the same genus have been met with in the lower-level gravels of the Somme where large blocks of sandstone seem to imply that ice once played a part in th

ficult to conceive that their congeners could have thriven all the year round in regions where, during winter, the rivers were frozen over for months. Moreover, I have been unable to learn that, in any instance, bones of the hippopotamus have been found in the drift of northern Germany associated with the remains of the mammoth, tichorhine rhinoceros, musk-ox, reindeer, lemming, and other arctic quadrupeds before alluded to; yet, though not proved to have

, for having given us an account of the migratory habits of th

f the Zoology of So

opota

of a dried-up river to another; but it is by water that their powers of locomotion are surpassingly great, not only in rivers, but in the sea, for they are far from confining themselves to fresh water. Indeed, Sir A. Smith finds it "difficult to decide whether, during the daytime and when not feeding, they prefer the pools of rivers or the waters of the ocean for their abode." In districts where they have been disturbed by Man, they feed almost entirely in the night, chiefly on certain kinds of grass, but also

e Mediterranean, or even occasionally visited islands near the shore. Here and there they may have landed to graze or browse, tarrying awhile and afterwards continuing their course northwar

C, IN THE SOUTH OF FRAN

f storing up, in many cases, animal food destined for the manes of the defunct in a future life. I also cited M. Desnoyers' comments on the absence among the bones of wild and domestic animals found in old G

, near Aurignac, not far from the foot of the Pyrenees. I have had the advantage of inspecting the fossil bones and works of art obtained by him fr

ales des Sci. Nat."

translated in "Natu

January

PART OF THE HILL OF F

GROTTO OF AURIG

in which the remain

ns were

und, two feet thick,

ones, with entire b

mals, and many works

d charcoal, six inche

nes of extinct and R

nd works of art

lar contents and a f

sh washed down fr

which closed the va

it exten

hich led to the disc

errace on which

limestone of h

brook called Rodes, which flows at its foot on one side. It consists of Nummulitic limestone, presenting a steep escarpment towards the north-west, on which side in the face of th

igging a trench through the middle of the talus, and in a few hours found himself opposite a large heavy slab of rock f h, placed vertically against the entrance. Having removed this, he discovered on the other side of it an arched cavity a, 7 or 8 feet in its greatest height, 10 in width, and 7 in horizontal depth. It was almost filled with bones, among which were two entire skulls, which he recognised at once as human. The people of Aurignac, astonished to hear of the occurrence of so many human relics in so lonely a spot, flocked to the cave, and Dr. Amiel, the Mayor, ordered all the bones to be taken out and reinterred in the parish cemetery. Bu

human skeletons, being supposed to consist entirely of made ground. Having obtained the assistance of some intelligent workmen, he personally superintended their labours, and found outside the grotto, resting on the sloping terrace h k, the layer of ashes and charcoal c, about 6 inches thick, extending over an area of 6 or 7 square yards, and going as far as the entrance of the g

atter not fewer than a hundred flint articles-knives, projectiles, sling stones, and chips, and among them one of those siliceous cores or nuclei with nume

anish antiquaries to have been used for removing by skilful blows the edges of flint knives, the fingers and thumb being placed in the two opposite depressions during the operation. Among the bone instruments were arrows without barbs, and other tool

cies of animals enumerated in the subjoined lists, with the exception of two

VIDUALS, BONES OF WHICH WER

: NAME O

NUMBER OF

ARNI

laeus (cave-

ctos? (brow

axus (badg

vulgaris (

pelaea (cav

tus ferus (

laea (cave-hy

lupus (

ulpes (fox

ERBI

igenius (mammot

horhinus (Siberia

allus (horse

asinus (?

ofa (pig, t

elaphus

ernicus (giganti

olus (roebu

us (reindeer

opaeus (auroc

ter they were broken, the work, according to M. Lartet, of hyaenas, the bones and coprolites of which were mixed with the cinders, and dispersed through the overlying soil d. These beasts of prey are supposed to have prowled about the spot and fed on such relics of the funeral feast

d the marrow extracted and having afterwards been gnawed and in part devoured as if by carnivorous beasts, but that they had also been acted upon by fire (a

occurred among the ashes, were those of a young Rhinoceros tichorhinus, the bones of which had been

n they were first broken into. M. Lartet inferred at first that the bodies were bent down upon themselves in a squatting attitude, a posture known to have been adopted in most of the sepulchres of primitive times; and he has so represented them in his restoration of the cave: but this opinio

contained precisely the same proportion of nitrogen, or had lost an equal amount of their animal matter. My friend Mr. Evans, before cited, has suggested to me that such a fact, taken alone, may not be conclusive in favour of the equal antiquity of the human and other remains. No doubt, had the human skeletons been found to contain more gelatine than those of the extinct mammalia, it would have shown that they were the more modern of the two; but it is possible that after a bone has gone on losing its animal matter up to a certain point, it may then part wit

n the interior examined by M. Lartet was found the tusk of a young Ursus spelaeus, the crown of which had been stripped of its enamel, and which had been carved perhaps in imitation of the head of a bird. It was perforated lengthwise as if for suspension as an ornament or amulet.

boar, also found in the interior, were memorials perhaps of the chase.

erior seem to have been clothed with their flesh when buried in the layer of loose soil strewed over the floor. In confirmation of this idea, many bones of the skeleton were often observed to be in juxtaposition, and in one spot all the bones of the leg of an Ursus spelaeus were lying together uninjured. Add t

the Mississippi; and Schiller, in his famous "Nadowessische Todtenklage," has faithfully embodied in a poetic dirge all the characteristic features of the ceremonies so graphically described by the English traveller, not omitting the many f

e last gifts!-

lament

pleased, and

d with t

s head the

so stout

bear's fat h

ney henc

e knife new

the ba

ck strokes-he

an's sca

that warrior

e within

shine with

he spiri

d Ballads of

all the same mammalia associated elsewhere with flint implements, and some species, such as the Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros hemitoechus, and Hippopotamus major, missing here, have been met with in other places.

odern style of the wor

change in the physical geography of the country

trong negative evidence, to be of subsequent date. Thus, for example, at Savigne, near Civray, in the department of Vienne, there is a cave in which there are no extinct mammalia, but where remains of the reindeer abound. The works of art of the stone period found there indicate considerable progress in skill beyond that attested by the objects found in the Aurignac grotto. Among the Savigne articles, there is the bone of a stag, on which figures of two animals, apparently meant for deer, are engraved in outline, as if by a sharp-pointed flint. In another cave, that of Massat, in the department of Ariege, which

Switzerland, in which hitherto the reindeer is wanting; whereas the reindeer has been found i

fluctuations since the remains of some extinct quadrupeds were eaten,

rth torrents of lava or showers of ashes; while, in tracts hard by, the ancient forest, or extensive heath, or the splendid city continue scatheless and motionless. Had the talus which concealed from view the ancient hearth with its cinders and the massive stone portal of the Aurignac grotto escaped all human interference for thousands of years to come, there is no reason to suppose that the small stream at the foot of the hill of Fajoles would have undermined it. At the end of a long period the only alteration might have been the thickening of the talus

noes of Central Fr

ectamenta, stands unmolested. Had the waters once risen, even for a day, so high as to reach the level of the base of one of these cones-had there been a single flood 50 or 60 feet in height since the last eruption occurred, a great part of these volcanoes must ine

es to their last resting-place-if we have also at the portal of the tomb the relics of funeral feasts, and within it indications of viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to a land of spirits; while among the funeral gifts are weapons wherewith in other fields to chase the gigantic deer, the cave-lion, the cave-bear, and woolly rhinoceros-we have at last succeeded in tracing b

re first

oods the noble

ranada" Part 1