Man and the Glacial Period

by G. Frederick Wright

I visited Thenay, the most celebrated of these three localities, in 1877, and had the advantage of studying the question there under the guidance of the late Abbé Bourgeois, the discoverer of the flints, and one of the most prominent advocates of the Tertiary man. This was the year before he died, and he showed me at the time his complete collection, and gave me several of the objects he had discovered. Geologists are agreed in assigning the deposits in which they occur to the lower Miocene or middle Tertiary period, which restricts the discussion to the character of the flints themselves. The accompanying woodcut[FA] gives some indication of their appearance, although it is misleading, because the long figure resembling a flint knife is intended to represent a solid nucleus. None of these objects, however, ought to be called “flints flakes,” as very few, if any, flakes showing the “bulb of percussion,” always seen upon them, have been discovered in the Tertiary deposits at Thenay,[FB] although I have found them there myself upon the surface. The three other figures would be classed by archæologists as “piercers,” as Bourgeois has himself designated them, and are also solid objects. Many of the Thenay flints exhibit a “crackled” appearance, due to the action of heat. On this account Mortillet maintains that they were splintered by fire, and not formed by percussion, the usual method by which flint implements were fabricated in the stone age. The Thenay objects are all of very small dimensions, and are so absolutely unlike the large, rudely-chipped axes of the Chellean type, found in so many different parts of the world, and generally accepted as the implement used by Palæolithic man, that the question naturally suggests itself, What could have been the purpose for which these little implements were employed? No better answer has been suggested than the ludicrous one that they were used by the hairy anthropopithecus to rid himself of the vermin with which he was infested.

[FA] From Le Conte, op. cit., p. 608. The figures are copied from Gaudry, who borrowed them from the article by Bourgeois, Congrès Internat. de Bruxelles, 1872, p. 89, pl. ii; and from his La Question de l’Homme Tertiare. Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 1877, p. 15.

[FB] Le Préhistorique, p. 91.

But, leaving aside the question of their purpose, let us consider the evidence presented by the flints themselves. Do they exhibit the unmistakable traces of intentional chipping produced by a series of slight blows or thrusts, delivered in regular succession and in the same direction, with the result of forming a distinctly marked edge? And does the appearance of the action of fire upon their surface imply the intervention of intelligence? To both questions M. Adrien Arcelin, the well-known geologist of Mâcon, has given very sufficient replies in the negative. He has discovered numerous objects of precisely similar appearance in Eocene deposits in the neighborhood of Mâcon.[FC] But, instead of pushing man back on this account so much further into the past, he accounts for the marks of chipping to be seen on many of these objects as the result of the accidental shocks of one stone against another in the countless overturnings and movements to which the strata have been subjected during the long ages of geological time. He gives photographs of some of these objects, which are to me entirely convincing, and describes how he has surprised Nature in the very act of fabricating them in an abandoned quarry worked in an Eocene deposit. He thinks the “crackled” surfaces can be readily explained as the result of atmospheric action, or of hot springs charged with silex. Numerous examples of similar changes in the surface of flint, that have been noticed by himself and others in different localities, are instanced. Even if some have been caused by fire, this does not necessarily imply the intervention of man to have produced it. Similar discoveries have also been made by M. d’Ault de Mesnil, at Thenay, in Eocene deposits,[FD] and by M. Paul Cabanne, in the Gironde.[FE] My own opinion, based upon the experience of many years spent in the study of flints broken naturally as well as artificially, and upon a careful examination of Bourgeois’s collections, is that the so-called Thenay flints are the result of natural causes.

[FC] Matériaux pour l’Histoire Prim, et Nat. de l’Homme, tome xix, p. 193.

[FD] Matériaux, ibid., p. 246.

[FE] Id., tome xxii, p. 205.

The second locality where flints alleged to display marks of human action have been found is the vicinity of Aurillac, in the Auvergne, especially on the flanks of a hill called Puy-Courny. They occur in a conglomerate of the upper Miocene period, and are consequently much later than the Thenay flints. In this conglomerate, in 1869, M. Tardy discovered a worked flint flake which has every appearance of being artificial.[FF] Mortillet, however, says that it was found in the upper surface of the deposit, where there may easily have been a mingling with the Quaternary formation; and it certainly resembles worked flakes, which are not uncommon in the Quaternary. The geological determination of the find may consequently be regarded as uncertain.

[FF] See Matériaux, tome vi, p. 94. S. Reinach, however, Description Raison. du Musée de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, i, p. 107, n. 8, calls it “gravure inexacte.”

The flints discovered at Puy-Courny by M. Barnes are of small dimensions, and have all been produced by percussion. Many of them are said to bear some resemblance to pointed flakes of artificial origin, and one has been figured, probably selected for its excellence.[FG] It is by no means convincing to me, and I am not at all surprised that so many archæologists question the artificial character of these objects, which exhibit a great variety of forms. Upon this point Rames does not profess to be qualified to pronounce judgment, limiting himself solely to the geological questions. He argues, however, that the fact that all the objects supposed to be artificial are made of the best qualities of flint, of which implements are ordinarily made, although fragments of inferior quality are abundant in the same formation, implies the intervention of man’s judgment in making the selection. But M. Boule shows that this is merely the result of the erosion of an ancient river, which operated only upon the upper beds, in which alone the better qualities of flint are to be found; and Rames has accepted this explanation.[FH] The flints of Puy-Courny seem to fall within the same category as those of Thenay. They are the product of denudation, have travelled long distances, and have been subjected to the action of powerful agents. These causes are sufficient to account for the shocks of which they show the traces, and to explain the production of splinters arising therefrom.