The Antiquity of Man Part 11

Many of the hatchets are stained of an ochreous-yellow colour, when they have been buried in yellow gravel, others have acquired white or brown tints, according to the matrix in which they have been enclosed.

This accordance in the colouring of the flint tools with the character of the bed from which they have come, indicates, says Mr. Prestwich, not only a real derivation from such strata, but also a sojourn therein of equal duration to that of the naturally broken flints forming part of the same beds.*

(* "Philosophical Transactions" 1861 page 297.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figures 11, 12 and 13. Dendrites on Fling Hatchets]

(FIGURES 11, 12 AND 13. DENDRITES ON SURFACES OF FLINT HATCHETS IN THE DRIFT OF ST. ACHEUL, NEAR AMIENS.

FIGURE 11. a. Natural size.

FIGURE 12. b. Natural size. c. Magnified.

FIGURE 13. d. Natural size.

e. Magnified.)

The surface of many of the tools is encrusted with a film of carbonate of lime, while others are adorned by those ramifying crystallisations called dendrites (see Figures 11, 12 and 13), usually consisting of the mixed oxides of iron and manganese, forming extremely delicate blackish brown sprigs, resembling the smaller kinds of sea weed. They are a useful test of antiquity when suspicions are entertained of the workmen having forged the hatchets which they offer for sale. The most general test, however, of the genuineness of the implements obtained by purchase is their superficial varnish-like or vitreous gloss, as contrasted with the dull aspect of freshly fractured flints. I also remarked, during each of my three visits to Amiens, that there were some extensive gravel-pits, such as those of Montiers and St. Roch, agreeing in their geological character with those of St. Acheul, and only a mile or two distant, where the workmen, although familiar with the forms, and knowing the marketable value of the articles above described, a.s.sured me that they had never been able to find a single implement.

Respecting the authenticity of the tools as works of art, Professor Ramsay, than whom no one could be a more competent judge, observes: "For more than twenty years, like others of my craft, I have daily handled stones, whether fashioned by nature or art; and the flint hatchets of Amiens and Abbeville seem to me as clearly works of art as any Sheffield whittle."*

(* "Athenaeum" July 16, 1859.)

Mr. Evans cla.s.sifies the implements under three heads, two of which, the spear heads and the oval or almond-shaped kinds, have already been described. The third form (Figure 14) consists of flakes, apparently intended for knives or some of the smaller ones for arrow heads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 14. Flint Knife or Flake]

(FIGURE 14. FLINT KNIFE OR FLAKE FROM BELOW THE SAND CONTAINING CYRENA FLUMINALIS. MENCHECOURT, ABBEVILLE.

d. Transverse section along the line of fracture, b, c.

Size, two-thirds of the original.)

In regard to their origin, Mr. Evans observes that there is a uniformity of shape, a correctness of outline, and a sharpness about the cutting edges and points, which cannot be due to anything but design.*

(* "Archaeologia" volume 38.)

Of these knives and flakes, I obtained several specimens from a pit which I caused to be dug at Abbeville, in sand in contact with the Chalk, and below certain fluvio-marine beds, which will be alluded to in the next chapter.

Between the spear-head and oval shapes, there are various intermediate gradations, and there are also a vast variety of very rude implements, many of which may have been rejected as failures, and others struck off as chips in the course of manufacturing the more perfect ones. Some of these chips can only be recognised by an experienced eye as bearing marks of human workmanship.

It has often been asked, how, without the use of metallic hammers, so many of these oval and spear-headed tools could have been wrought into so uniform a shape. Mr. Evans, in order experimentally to ill.u.s.trate the process, constructed a stone hammer, by mounting a pebble in a wooden handle, and with this tool struck off flakes from the edge on both sides of a Chalk flint, till it acquired precisely the same shape as the oval tool, Figure 9.

If I were invited to estimate the probable number of the more perfect tools found in the valley of the Somme since 1842, rejecting all the knives, and all that might be suspected of being spurious or forged, I should conjecture that they far exceeded a thousand. Yet it would be a great mistake to imagine that an antiquary or geologist, who should devote a few weeks to the exploration of such a valley as that of the Somme, would himself be able to detect a single specimen. But few tools were lying on the surface. The rest have been exposed to view by the removal of such a volume of sand, clay, and gravel, that the price of the discovery of one of them could only be estimated by knowing how many hundred labourers have toiled at the fortifications of Abbeville, or in the sand and gravel pits near that city, and around Amiens, for road materials and other economic purposes, during the last twenty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 15. Fossils of the White Chalk]

(FIGURE 15. FOSSILS OF THE WHITE CHALK.

a, b. Coscinopora globularis, D'Orbigny. Orbitolina concava, Parker and Jones. c. Part of same magnified.)

In the gravel pits of St. Acheul, and in some others near Amiens, small round bodies, having a tubular cavity in the centre, occur. They are well known as fossils of the White Chalk. Dr. Rigollot suggested that they might have been strung together as beads, and he supposed the hole in the middle to have been artificial. Some of these round bodies are found entire in the Chalk and in the gravel, others have naturally a hole pa.s.sing through them, and sometimes one or two holes penetrating some way in from the surface, but not extending to the other side.

Others, like b, Figure 15, have a large cavity, which has a very artificial aspect. It is impossible to decide whether they have or have not served as personal ornaments, recommended by their globular form, lightness, and by being less destructible than ordinary Chalk. Granting that there were natural cavities in the axis of some of them, it does not follow that these may not have been taken advantage of for stringing them as beads, while others may have been artificially bored through.

Dr. Rigollot's argument in favour of their having been used as necklaces or bracelets, appears to me a sound one. He says he often found small heaps or groups of them in one place, all perforated, just as if, when swept into the river's bed by a flood, the bond which had united them together remained unbroken.*

(* Rigollot, "Memoire sur des Instruments en Silex" etc., Amiens 1854 page 16.)

CHAPTER 8. -- PLEISTOCENE ALLUVIUM WITH FLINT IMPLEMENTS OF THE VALLEY OF THE SOMME--CONCLUDED.

Fluvio-marine Strata, with Flint Implements, near Abbeville.

Marine Sh.e.l.ls in same.

Cyrena fluminalis.

Mammalia.

Entire Skeleton of Rhinoceros.

Flint Implements, why found low down in Fluviatile Deposits.

Rivers shifting their Channels.

Relative Ages of higher and lower-level Gravels.

Section of Alluvium of St. Acheul.

Two Species of Elephant and Hippopotamus coexisting with Man in France.

Volume of Drift, proving Antiquity of Flint Implements.

Absence of Human Bones in tool-bearing Alluvium, how explained.

Value of certain Kinds of negative Evidence tested thereby.

Human Bones not found in drained Lake of Haarlem.

In the section of the valley of the Somme given in Figure 7, the successive formations newer than the Chalk are numbered in chronological order, beginning with the most modern, or the peat, which is marked Number 1, and which has been treated of in the last chapter. Next in the order of antiquity are the lower-level gravels, Number 2, which we have now to describe; after which the alluvium, Number 3, found at higher levels, or about 80 and 100 feet above the river-plain, will remain to be considered.

I have selected, as ill.u.s.trating the old alluvium of the Somme occurring at levels slightly elevated above the present river, the sand and gravel-pits of Menchecourt, in the northwest suburbs of Abbeville, to which, as before stated, attention was first drawn by M. Boucher de Perthes, in his work on Celtic antiquities. Here, although in every adjoining pit some minor variations in the nature and thickness of the superimposed deposits may be seen, there is yet a general approach to uniformity in the series. The only stratum of which the relative age is somewhat doubtful, is the gravel marked a, underlying the peat, and resting on the Chalk. It is only known by borings, and some of it may be of the same age as Number 3; but I believe it to be for the most part of more modern origin, consisting of the wreck of all the older gravel, including Number 3, and formed during the last hollowing out and deepening of the valley immediately before the commencement of the growth of peat.

The greater number of flint implements have been dug out of Number 3, often near the bottom, and twenty-five, thirty, or even more than thirty feet below the surface of Number 1.

A geologist will perceive by a glance at the section that the valley of the Somme must have been excavated nearly to its present depth and width when the strata of Number 3 were thrown down, and that after the deposits Numbers 3, 2, and 1 had been formed in succession, the present valley was scooped out, patches only of Numbers 3 and 2 being left. For these deposits cannot originally have ended abruptly as they now do, but must have once been continuous farther towards the centre of the valley.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 16. Fluvio-Marine Strata]

(FIGURE 16. SECTION OF FLUVIO-MARINE STRATA, CONTAINING FLINT IMPLEMENTS AND BONES OF EXTINCT MAMMALIA, AT MENCHECOURT, ABBEVILLE.*

(* For detailed sections and maps of this district, see Prestwich, "Philosophical Transactions" 1860 page 277.)

1. Brown clay with angular flints, and occasionally Chalk rubble, unstratified, following the slope of the hill, probably of subaerial origin, of very varying thickness, from 2 to 5 feet and upwards.

2. Calcareous loam, buff-coloured, resembling loess, for the most part unstratified, in some places with slight traces of stratification, containing freshwater and land sh.e.l.ls, with bones of elephants, etc.; thickness about 15 feet.

3. Alternations of beds of gravel, marl, and sand, with freshwater and land sh.e.l.ls, and, in some of the lower sands, a mixture of marine sh.e.l.ls; also bones of elephant, rhinoceros, etc., and flint implements; thickness about 12 feet.

a. Gravel underlying peat, age undetermined.

b. Layer of impervious clay, separating the gravel from the peat.)

To begin with the oldest, Number 3, it is made up of a succession of beds, chiefly of freshwater origin, but occasionally a mixture of marine and fluviatile sh.e.l.ls is observed in it, proving that the sea sometimes gained upon the river, whether at high tides or when the fresh water was less in quant.i.ty during the dry season, and sometimes perhaps when the land was slightly depressed in level. All these accidents might occur again and again at the mouth of any river, and give rise to alternations of fluviatile and marine strata, such as are seen at Menchecourt.

In the lowest beds of gravel and sand in contact with the Chalk, flint hatchets, some perfect, others much rolled, have been found; and in a sandy bed in this position some workmen, whom I employed to sink a pit, found four flint knives. Above this sand and gravel occur beds of white and siliceous sand, containing sh.e.l.ls of the genera Planorbis, Limnea, Paludina, Valvata, Cyclas, Cyrena, Helix, and others, all now natives of the same part of France, except Cyrena fluminalis (Figure 17), which no longer lives in Europe, but inhabits the Nile, and many parts of Asia, including Cashmere, where it abounds. No species of Cyrena is now met with in a living state in Europe. Mr. Prestwich first observed it fossil at Menchecourt, and it has since been found in two or three contiguous sand-pits, always in the fluvio-marine bed. [16]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 17. Cyrena fluminalis]