Figure 1.
Stone weapons described by Mahudel in 1734.
A communication made by Frère to the Royal Society of London deserves mention here with a few supplementary remarks.[9]
This distinguished man of science found at Hoxne, in Suffolk, about twelve feet below the surface of the soil, worked flints, which had evidently been the natural weapons of a people who had no knowledge of metals. With these flints were found some strange bones with the gigantic jaw of an animal then unknown. Frère adds that the number of chips of flint was so great that the workmen, ignorant of their scientific value, used them in road-making. Every thing pointed to the conclusion that Hoxne was the place where this primitive people manufactured the weapons and implements they used, so that as early as the end of last century a member of the Royal Society formulated the propositions,[10] now fully accepted, that at a very remote epoch men used nothing but stone weapons and implements, and that side by side with these men lived huge animals unknown in historic times. These facts, strange as they appear to us, attracted no attention at the time. It would seem that special acumen is needed for every fresh discovery, and that until the time for that discovery comes, evidence remains unheeded and science is altogether blind to its significance.
But to resume our narrative. It is interesting to note the various phases through which the matter passed before the problem was solved. In 1819, M. Jouannet announced that he had found stone weapons near Périgord. In 1823, the Rev. Dr. Buckland published the “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” the value of which, though it is a work of undoubted merit, was greatly lessened by the preconceived ideas of its author. A few years later, Tournal announced his discoveries in the cave of Bize, near Narbonne, in which, mixed with human bones, he found the remains of various animals, some extinct, some still native to the district, together with worked flints and fragments of pottery. After this, Tournal maintained that man had been the contemporary of the animals the bones of which were mixed with the products of human industry.[11] The results of the celebrated researches of Dr. Schmerling in the caves near Liège were published in 1833. He states his conclusions frankly: “The shape of the flints,” he says, “is so regular, that it is impossible to confound them with those found in the Chalk or in Tertiary strata. Reflection compels us to admit that these flints were worked by the hand of man, and that they may have been used as arrows or as knives.”[12] Schmerling does not refer, though Lyell does, and that in terms of high admiration, to the courage required for the arduous work involved in the exploration of the caves referred to, or to the yet more serious obstacles the professor had to overcome in publishing conclusions opposed to the official science of the day.
In 1835, M. Joly, by his excavations in the Nabrigas cave, established the contemporaneity of man with the cave bear, and a little later M. Pomel announced his belief that plan had witnessed the last eruptions of the volcanoes of Auvergne.
In spite of these discoveries, and the eager discussions to which they led, the question of the antiquity of man and of his presence amongst the great Quaternary animals made but little progress, and it was reserved to a Frenchman, M. Boucher de Perthes, to compel the scientific world to accept the truth.
It was in 1826 that Boucher de Perthes first published his opinion; but it was not until 1816 and 1847 that he announced his discovery at Menchecourt, near Abbeville, and at Moulin-Quignon and Saint Acheul, in the alluvial deposits of the Somme, of flints shaped into the form of hatchets associated with the remains of extinct animals such as the mammoth, the cave lion, the Rhinoceros incisivus, the hippopotamus, and other animals whose presence in France is not alluded to either in history or tradition. The uniformity of shape, the marks of repeated chipping, and the sharp edges so noticeable in the greater number of these hatchets, cannot be sufficiently accounted for either by the action of water, or the rubbing against each other of the stones, still less ply the mechanical work of glaciers. We must therefore recognize in them the results of some deliberate action and of an intelligent will, such as is possessed by man, and by man alone. Professor Ramsay[13] tells us that, after twenty years’ experience in examining stones in their natural condition and others fashioned by the hand of man, he has no hesitation in pronouncing the flints and hatchets of Amiens and Abbeville as decidedly works of art as the knives of Sheffield. The deposits in which they were found showed no sins of having been disturbed; so that we may confidently conclude that the men who worked these flints lived where the banks of the Somme now are, when these deposits were in course of being laid down, and that he was the contemporary of the animals whose bones lay side by side with the products of his industry.
This conclusion, which now appears so simple, was not accepted without difficulty. Boucher de Perthes defended his discoveries in books, in pamphlets, and in letters addressed to learned societies. He had the courage of his convictions, and the perseverance which insures success. For twenty years he contended patiently against the indifference of some, and the contempt of others. Everywhere the proofs he brought forward were rejected, without his being allowed the honor of a discussion or even of a hearing. The earliest converts to De Perthes’ conclusions met with similar attacks and with similar indifference. There is nothing to surprise us in this; it is human nature not to take readily to anything new, or to entertain ideas opposed to old established traditions. The most distinguished men find it difficult to break with the prejudices of their education and the yet more firmly established prejudices of the systems they have themselves built up. The words of the great French fabulist will never cease to be true: