Part 3 (1/2)

_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.