Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples | Page 8

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
Perigord. In 1823, the Rev. Dr. Buckland published the "Reliquiae
Diluvianae," 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 Liege 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