XVII. On the occurrence of flint-implements, associated with the remains of animals of extinct species in beds of a late geological period, in France at Amiens and Abbeville, and in England at Hoxne

Abstract

Few strata have been more extensively worked than the superficial sands, clays, gravels, and brick-earth belonging to the Drift or Pleistocene series, and a great number of cavedeposits belonging to the same period have also been carefully explored; nevertheless it is only in a few exceptional cases that the remains of man or of his works have been recorded as occurring in association with the mammalian and other organic remains so often found in such situations, and even these few exceptions have generally been viewed with doubt or else entirely rejected. The conclusion, in fact, that man did not exist until after the latest of our geological changes and until after the dying out of the great extinct mammals, had become almost a point of established belief. Although resting mainly upon negative evidence and preconceived opinion, this prevalent belief was strengthened by the failure of the many ill-observed and dubious cases which had, from time to time, been brought forward. Owing to these circumstances there is little doubt that cases really meriting inquiry have been neglected or overlooked. To name only a few highly probable instances:— In 1833, Dr. Schmerling of Liége discovered in some caves in the valley of the Meuse, and at elevations of about 200 feet above the river, some bones of man associated with others of recent and extinct mammals: and he further subsequently recorded the occurrence, under the same conditions, both of worked flints and of worked bones. Amongst the human remains were two skulls, one of which, found at a depth of 5 feet in the cave-earth, “was surrounded on all sides by teeth of Rhinoceros, Horse, Hyœna, and Bear :" the other was lying at the bottom of the deposit by the side of a tooth of an Elephant . The human bones, like those of the extinct animals, were mostly broken and fragmentary. They were all of the same colour and mixed together indis­criminately; and, according to Dr. Schmerling, there were no traces of the ground having, in those places, been artificially disturbed.