The Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 | Page 9

full
account is given of the researches of MM. Journal and Christol in the
Bize cavern, and of Dr. Schmerling in the Liége caverns, and every
effort made, apparently, by the author, to weigh candidly and honestly
the evidence for and against the contemporaneous existence and
deposition of the human and mammalian remains. And while he admits
that at one time he was strongly inclined to suspect that they were not
coeval[3], yet he has been compelled by subsequent evidence,
especially in view of the fact that he has had convincing proofs in later
years that the remains of the mammoth and many other extinct species,
very common in caves, occur also in undisturbed alluvium, imbedded
in such a manner with works of art as to leave no room for doubt that
man and the extinct animals coexisted, to reconsider his former opinion,
and to assign to the proofs derived from caves of the high antiquity of
man a much more positive and emphatic character.
In chapter fifth we have a minute and interesting account of such fossil
human skulls and skeletons as have been found in caves and ancient
tumuli, and a careful endeavor made to estimate their approximate age.
In 1857, in a cave situated in that part of the valley of the Düssel, near
Düsseldorf, which is called the Neanderthal, a skull and skeleton were
found, buried beneath five feet of loam, which were pronounced by
Professor Huxley and others to be clearly human, though indicating
small cerebral development and uncommon strength of corporeal frame.
In the Engis caves, near Liége, portions of six or seven human

skeletons were found, imbedded in the same matrix with the remains of
the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyena, and other extinct quadrupeds. In
an ancient tumulus near Borrely, in Denmark, a human skull was
discovered which was adjudged by its surroundings to belong to the
'stone period' of Denmark, or the era of the Scotch fir. The careful
anatomical examination and comparison to which these skulls have
been subjected, have led to important discussions, not only as to their
age, but also as to their relation to existing races.
Next comes an extended account of the flint implements and other
works of art, found so abundantly in juxtaposition with the bones of
extinct mammalia, in various localities--in a cave at Brixham, near
Torquay, in Devonshire; in the alluvium of the Thames valley; in the
gravel of the valley of the Ouse, near Bedford; in a fresh-water deposit
at Hoxne in Suffolk; in the valley of the Lach at Icklingham; in a
cavern in Somersetshire; in the caves of Gomer in Glamorganshire, in
South Wales; and especially in the gravel beds of Abbeville and
Amiens, in France, and various localities of the valley of the Somme.
As to these flint implements, they are chiefly knives, hatchets, and
instruments of that sort, and they have been found in such large
numbers, and such diverse localities, and so uniformly in close
proximity with the remains of the same species of extinct mammalia,
that the evidence derived from them is, to say the least, of a very
weighty character, and in the opinion of Sir Charles Lyell clearly
establishes the fact that Elephas primigenius, Elephas antiquus,
Rhinoceros tichorrhinus, Ursus speloeus, and other extinct species of
the post-pliocene alluvium, coexisted with man.
Attempts have been made to throw doubt upon these implements, first
upon their nature, and next upon their genuineness; but we think no one
who weighs the evidence candidly and carefully, can award to these
doubts the merit of respectability. That they are works of art and not
native forms, is, we think, as fully established as human observation
can establish anything; and though frauds have been recently detected,
it would be no more absurd to attribute the whole phenomena of fossil
remains to fraudulent manufacture, than to refer to the same source the
whole series of flint implements. In many cases the flint tools were

taken out of their position by the hands of scientific men themselves,
and in others the excavations were made under their immediate
supervision. M. Gandry, in giving an account of his researches at St.
Acheul, in 1859, to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, says: 'The
great point was not to leave the workmen for a single instant.'
But the most remarkable, not to say startling revelations of the whole
book, are those pertaining to the discovery of an ancient place of
sepulture at Auvignac, in the south of France. Here we seem to be
brought, as it were, face to face with the denizens of the departed ages,
and to have them start up from their ancient tombs to tell the story of
their death and sepulture. We enter this old burial place with feelings of
more strange