tents were very important. The systematic and conscientious search from which the results were obtained is due mainly to the exertions of Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, assisted by a grant from the Royal Society.* The calcareous rock of the neighborhood is divided by joints crossing each other at right angles; these joints have been enlarged by the percolation of rain-water, and perhaps by running streams, and by the erosions of sea-waves when the land was at a lower level. The floor of the original cave is a coarse and more or less pebbly deposit; and over this is a loamy deposit, partially covered with stalagmite and containing bones of extinct mammalia. Other deposits lie on this loam, and amongst them, sometimes under the stalagmite, and mixed with the fragments of extinct animals such as are usually found in caves, are sculptured flints of a rude form, but unmistakably artificial in their origin, the whole clearly showing that the deposit of human remains and of the bones of extinct cavern animals were events absolutely cotemporaneous; while an antler of a reindeer and a bone of the cave-bear were imbedded in the superficial stalagmite in the middle of the cave, over the deposit containing the sculptured flint. While the explorations were still going on in the Brixham cave, Dr. Falconer was visiting a cave in Sicily previously undescribed; and here also he discovered, "under very interesting and somewhat anomalous conditions, a large patch of bone breccia, containing teeth of ruminants, bits of carbon, shells of various species of helix, and a vast abundance of flint and agate knives of human manufacture," (Abstr. of Proc. of Geol. Soc., No. 32.) As these were cemented to the roof of the cavern by stalagmite, and the rest of the deposit is now gone, there can be little doubt that great changes and a long period of time must have elapsed, and many geological events supervened, since the human inhabitants lived who manufactured the knives. "With regard to the fragments of silicious objects, the great majority of them present definite forms, being long, narrow, and thin; having invariably a smooth conchoidal surface below, and above a longitudinal ridge beveled off right and left, or a concave facet replacing *No report has yet been made to the Royal Society of the result of the investigations. the ridge—in the latter case presenting three facets on the upper side. Dr. Falconer is of opinion that they closely resemble in every detail of form obsidian knives from Mexico and where; and that they appear to have been flat knives from Stonehenge, Arabia, and elseformed by the dislamination as films of the long angles of prismatic blocks of stone. These fragments occur, intimately intermixed with the bone-splinters, shells, etc., in the roof-breccia in very considerable abundance; amorphous fragments of flint are comparatively rare, and no the cave."-Abstr. of Geol. Proc. No. 36. pebbles or blocks occur either within or without It is clear in this case that the original deposit, containing this admixture of flint knives with bones and shells, was effected by a drift in tranquil water; but the important and significant fact that the bones of extinct animals were quietly mixed up with human remains, is worthy of careful attention. The evidence, then, at present obtained from the explorations of caverns with reference to the age of the human race, amounts to this: In at least two instances, one in England, and another in Sicily, (but probably in many more, since the very possibility of such evidence was ignored till lately, and numerous very similar caverns to those examined have been carelessly opened and the record lost,) there has been a positive admixture of sculptured flints with bones of the following extinct species, or some of them: Elephas priscus (the mammoth of early geologists,) the great cavern-hyena, the great cavern-bear, at least one extinct rhinoceros, an extinct bos and equus, and the reindeer. It also appears that this admixture is of such a kind as to prove a complete cotemporaneity, and not accidental admixture made after both had been elsewhere deposited. an The human race is thus proved to have been represented in Western Europe at the time of the existence of these animals, now long lost. The exact nature of the objects supposed to indicate the presence of our race we have, indeed, for the present assumed; but we shall endeavor presently to put this also before the reader, and have only hitherto withheld it because the facts and inferences in relation to these objects are more directly connected with the history of gravel than with that of cavern deposits. The evidence obtained from gravel we now proceed to discuss. It is not necessary, perhaps, to occupy much space in illustrating what is meant by gravel; but we must in a few lines explain the technical sense in which the word is here used. Geologists understand by gravel a mixed mass of sand and more or less rounded stones, brought together by or in water, and deposited sometimes in hollows, sometimes on plains, sometimes on hill-tops, but generally in patches. To account for this gravel, various theories have been suggested; and there can be little doubt that similar material may have been accumulated at any period of the earth's history, and perhaps in many ways. But it is only those deposits that belong, or are immediately antecedent, to the last changes that have affected the surface, of which the indications are clear; and thus the use of the term is generally limited to the latest aqueous deposits of the nature described. As the gravel also often shows symptoms of having been drifted, it is not unfrequently called drift. The contents of many of the caverns already alluded to are partially composed of such drift, and were brought into their present position during part of the same geological period. When in ordinary deposits of gravel the bones of quadrupeds of the drift period are found, and are little injured, they must be assumed to have been deposited cotemporaneously with the stones, gravel, or sand with which they are mingled. These animals being for the most part of the same kind as those found in the caverns, the gravel-beds, as well as the caverns, ought to afford similar evidence of human remains. So long ago as the year 1797, a memoir by Mr. John Frere was published,* mentioning the discovery of some flint implements in a bed of gravel eleven or twelve feet from the surface, at Hoxne in Suffolk, the gravel being overlaid by sand and brick earth, and containing, besides these sculptured flints, the bones of some unknown animal, since presumed to have been the mammoth, (Elephas priscus.) At the time no notice seems to have been taken of this discovery; for, indeed, the study of geology and fossils hardly existed as a science, and the fact was put on record for the benefit of archæologists. The next account of a similar discovery is be * Archæologia, vol. xiii., (published in 1800.) found in the memoirs of the "Société d'Emulation d'Abbeville," in France, whose president, M. Boucher de Perthes, was an enthusiastic archeologist, and certainly an honest and not unsound ob server of geological phenomena. During the years 1840 to 1846 inclusive, M. Boucher read a series of memoirs to his society, bringing together the results of investigations very carefully made in the gravel-beds of St. Acheul, near Abbeville, and recording them in an octavo volume, containing numerous illustrative drawings of the objects discovered. It appears, indeed, that M. Boucher's researches* had been going on steadily and laboriously during the whole time that had been occupied in England first, in the exploration of caverns, in which any ap pearance of similar results was at once ignored, and afterwards in the determination of the descriptive geology of the country, which afforded ample employment for the best talent and most unceasing exertions of the hard-working and persevering geologists whose names have since become identified with the early history and progress of their science. Thus it happened that, although M. Boucher succeeded in bringing together from gravel-beds in his neighborhood a large series of sculptured flints and the bones of animals found in the same beds, and forwarded to Paris copies of his work and specimens, or rather whole collections. illustrating and confirming his views, neither the work nor the specimens received much attention; no one, indeed, contradicting, but no one taking the trouble to verify, the very important assertions and conclusions put forward. M. Boucher had, however, succeeded in satisfying himself, and hoped to satisfy the world, that there existed in these flints the last, and perhaps only, remains of a family of the human race who inhabited Western Europe at a period long antecedent to the earliest human records, and at a time when numerous gigantic quadrupeds now extinct were the common inhabitants of the country. The exact nature of the remains on which such important conclusions depend is a matter of considerable interest both *M. Boucher states, that the first idea of the possibility of finding human remains in gravel oc curred to him in the year 1826, and that from that time he was constantly looking out for evidence. to the geologist and archeologist; and we deposits, are generally also the most artimust now endeavor to describe them as ficial; while the more ancient (though accurately as possible. The fact is, indeed, occasionally very smooth) are usually that a number of chipped flints, which rough and almost shapeless. Those careless observers might think accident- found in the gravel are described as ally fractured, but which more careful of three forms: 1. Flakes of flint, apparobservation proves to have been artificial- ently intended for knives or arrow-heads; ly broken, include all the examples of 2. Pointed implements, usually truncated manufacture yet discovered that are really at the base, and varying in length from reliable and that belong to the earliest four to nine inches, possibly used as spear period. This may appear at first rather or lance-heads, which in shape they unsatisfactory evidence on which to build resemble; 3. Oval or almond-shaped a theory; but it happens in archæology implements, from two to nine inches in and geology, as in law, that good circum-length, and with a cutting edge all round. stantial evidence, even of the narrowest They have generally one end more sharpand apparently least important kind, is sometimes more convincing and trustworthy than more direct statements, however distinctly sworn to. A flint may no doubt be fractured naturally, by being knocked about with other hard stones on the sea-shore; but experiment and investigation have shown that such natural fracture produces a surface differing a good deal from that left when a part of the same flint has been knocked off intentionally by the blow of a hammer or of another stone. M. Boucher discovered that, with very few exceptions, a convex face was the result of an intentional blow; while a concave face may indeed be produced intentionally, but is the almost invariable result of an accident. The flints in question include a large number of mere chips, some with faces intentionally produced, and others accidental; but amongst them are many of which the form is so distinctly the effect of forethought and skill, that no one could doubt their being the work of men. Such are the arrow-heads, spear-heads, sacrificial knives and hatchets of archæologists, constructed not always of flint, but also of granite, porphyry, jade, serpent ine, jasper, basalt, and indeed almost all kinds of hard stone, and found in almost all parts of the world of the same general form and make. Of these the most perfect have well-defined shape, are often pierced with round holes, and are not only artificially cut and smoothed, but even highly polished: the less perfect generally show pretty clearly by their shape the purposes for which they were originally designed, and by their surface the degree of chipping and rubbing they have undergone: the least perfect are the chips already mentioned. The most modern, or those found in the newest ly curved than the other, and are ocea sionally even pointed, and they may be supposed to have been used as slingstones, or as axes, cutting at either end, with a handle bound round the center. This description of the objects in question was given by Mr. Evans at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in June last, and is the more to be valued, as Mr. Evans accompanied Mr. Prestwich on his visit to the neighborhood of Abbeville, to examine into the value of M. Boucher's assertions, and seems to have gone with great care into the subject. Mr. Evans further states, "that the evidence derived from the implements of the first kind is not of much weight, on account of their extreme simplicity of form, which at times renders it difficult to determine whether they were produced by art or by natural causes. This simplicity of form would also prevent the flint flakes made at the earliest period from being distinguishable from those of later date. The case is different with the other two forms of implements, which were unquestionably worked by the hand of man, and are not indebted for their shape to any natural configuration or peculiar fracture of the flint." They resemble in some respects the well-known implements of the so-called Celtic or stone period, which, however, are generally smoothed, or even polished, and are made of various kinds of hard stone. Those from the drift and caverns are never smoothed, and have not yet been found of other material than chalk-flint.* *Mr. Evans remarks, that in form and workmanship the flint implements discovered at St. Acheul differed essentially from those of the so-called Celtic period; and that, had they been found under any circumstances, they must have been regarded as the work of some other race than the Celts or known aboriginal tribes.-Proc. Roy. Soc. for May 26, 1859. land of the two Americas. Stone hatchets from Virginia, Mexico, and Arabia, are precisely identical in form with the Celts of England; and in every case these, and a few straggling fragments of the coarsest pottery, form the principal objects that remain to illustrate the manufactures of races of people essentially different, inhab M. Boucher-who, at any rate, deserves some consideration, since every thing that he has professed to describe appears to have been confirmed by later observers is satisfied that he has also discovered in many cases the handles of wood and stag's-horn originally attached to some of these implements. He believes that these were of the simplest kind; and he sup-iting the most widely distant countries poses that they were actually buried with the flinty and more enduring part, and are only not now exhumed owing to their more perishable material. However this may be, the negative fact of no other remains occurring can not fairly be held to militate against the evidence actually afforded by their presence; and they show every appearance of having been fabricated by another race of men than the Celts, who from the fact of true Celtic stone weapons of more finished make, and mixed, with pottery, having been found in the superficial soil above the drift, or in beds separated by distinct deposits of stalagmite from those contain ing these ruder weapons, as well as from other considerations must have inhabit ed this region of the globe at a period anterior to its so-called Celtic occupation. It is well worthy of notice, that in all parts of the world in which archæological researches have hitherto been made implements closely resembling either those above described, or the more finished and smoother weapons of a similar character but later date, referred in England to the Celts, have been found buried, or are still used by tribes little advanced in the arts of civilized life. Thus the flint axes and knives of the caverns or the gravel scarcely differ in form from the hatchets of the latest inhabitants of Britain previous to the incursion of the Saxon and Danish tribes; but the former are exclusively flint, and the latter show a large admixture of other stones, many of which are foreign. The arrow-heads and hatchets of England differ in no respect whatever from those of Normandy and Brittany, of the center and south of France, of Spain and Italy, of Sardinia and Sicily, and of other islands, as well as many places on the shores of the Mediterranean. These, again, have tkeir exact counterparts in Arabia and India, Eastern Asia and Australia, in the the islands of the Indian Archipelago and the South Pacific Ocean, in Mexico and the West-Indian islands, and on the main for many ages. Nor is there any thing extraordinary in this. Assuming that human art is, and always has been, the same in its origin and essential characteristics, but progressive and variously developed in individuals and races, it is diffi cult to understand how there could be other than a general resemblance in the form and structure of the first weapons, instruments, and utensils invented. Assuming also that the human intellect has been developed from a very low state of ignorance to its present stage of cultivation, one can readily imagine that a long and indefinite period might elapse between the first introduction of the human family on the earth, or on any part of it, and its advance to any defined point of civilization. The first steps of any infant tribe may have been almost indefinitely retarded, although when the first step was made several successive steps would probably follow very rapidly. The advances of discovery in modern, as in ancient times. are by a few rapid movements followed by a pause, during which the mass of mankind, left far behind by the first advance, are gradually creeping up to the new level. Once there, ages may again elapse before another great progress is made. M. Boucher, being an enthusiast, naturally rides his hobby to the death. He can see in the most shapeless stones, not suggestive to any other eye of the roughest human handling, mystical emblems of the domestic habits and mode of worship of the ancient races, the ancestors of the so-called Celts and Druids. He weaves from these fragments whole histories of early trials, and frequent failures of the savage, while attempting to manufacture the simplest stone implements; he discovers models of the temples and monu ments, built subsequently on a large scale into cromlechs and monoliths; and he makes out the forms of various animals, in anticipation of the idols one day to be constructed. All this, no doubt, has tended to throw discredit on important statements which really describe matters of fact, and which require most serious consideration. It is not easy, nor is it always possible, to determine whether a particular stone, whose form may suggest to one person the idea of a fish, and to another that of a human face, while a third sees no resemblance to any known object, has been intended to symbolize this or that idea; but it is very important, and comparatively easy, to know whether this stone has passed through human hands, and been hewn, however roughly, before being imbedded in a particular bed of gravel, or deposited on a certain part of a cave; and these are points on which M. Boucher gives good sound evidence. There is one other point of considerable importance to be referred to before leaving this part of the subject. It is the nature of the stone itself. In many of the later and more perfect specimens of manufacture there is some difficulty in tracing the stone to any neighboring quarry, and not unfrequently the material is decidedly and unmistakably foreign. In all the oldest flakes, arrow-heads, knives and hatchets, thy stone is that of the vicinity; flint in England, where this mineral is common; basalt or granite where flint is not obtainable. Elsewhere we find other rocks; but always the hardest and the toughest that could be obtained. fragments of shapeless flint buried with them. They are discolored by contact with ochreous matter, whitened when in a clayey matrix, incrusted with carbonate of lime when found with chalky matter, just as the other flints are; and in all respects appear to have undergone the same alteration by time and exposure. The condition of the flint implements The method that seems to have been in the gravel and caverns is peculiar, and adopted in the manufacture of the older corresponds in weathering with that of flint and stone implements was simple enough, and can be followed now with success by any one possessed of sufficient time and patience. The stone was probably taken from the rock, as in that case it would be rather softer than after long exposure to the air. By a number of slight blows, made by using one stone as a chisel and another as a hammer, small chips were knocked off in the right direction; and thus the number of the faces becomes a proof of the mode as well as of the fact of manufacture. In after times the edges were rubbed down on another stone as hard, or harder than the implement being constructed; and, at a later period still, a rough polishing process was introduced. These latter steps were, however, in all probability modern innovations, and involved efforts far beyond the powers of the oldest tribes. Not only are the implements and weapons found in various stages of completeness, but very rough beginnings are sometimes seen, and whole basketfuls of chips have been described as occurring in some localities. All of these tell the same tale; and although, no doubt, each one possesses a special interest, little is gained to science by the repetition of specimens either alike in structure and use, or intended for purposes we can not at all make out. The main fact is this, that flint and other hard stones, bearing marks of having been broken artificially into a definite form, afford proof of the existence of human beings at the time when the stones were thus wrought into shape.* There is naturally a great disinclination on the part of many to accept on any terms, facts so adverse to all ordinary notions of human chronology; for, as we shall see presently, there is but one conclusion to be arrived at if the artificial origin of these implements is admitted, as the races of men that constructed them must, in that case, have been cotemporaries with the great extinct cavern-bears, hyenas, and tigers inhabiting northern Europe at a period when elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses wandered over the forests and tenanted the rivers. Mr. Wright, no mean authority in antiquarian matters, has endeavored to throw doubt on the artificial origin of the flakes or more simple implements, of which the number found is very large; and states his belief, that "they might have been produced naturally by a violent and continued gyratory motion, perhaps in water, construction of flint implements has lately been un- It may be well to remind the reader that the acquisitions of this kind. |