Chapter 17

[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 pointedflakes 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.

[FG]Matériaux, tome xviii, p. 400.

[FH]Revue d’Anthropologie (third series), tome iv, p. 217.

The last locality in which flints claimed to have been manufactured by the Tertiary man are supposed to have been discovered is the so-called desert of Otta, in the valley of the Tagus, not far from Lisbon.

The formation there is a lacustrine deposit of great thickness, belonging to the upper Miocene, and abounding in flint. Here, during the course of twenty years, M. Ribeiro discovered, but mostly upon the surface, a large number of flakes of flint and quartzite. After much debate in regard to them, ninety-five of them were finally sent by him to Paris, in 1878, and placed in the archæological department of the great exposition. There they were to be submitted to the judgment of the assembled prehistoric archæologists of all nationalities, many of whom, including the writer, availed themselves of the opportunity of carefullystudying them. The judgment of Mortillet is that twenty-two specimens exhibited unmistakable traces of intentional chipping, in which opinion I entirely concur. Only nine, however, were represented as coming from the Miocene, some of which showed on their surface an incrustation of grit, which was claimed as proof of their origin. But the opinion was freely expressed that, even if they really came from the Miocene deposits, they might have penetrated into them from the surface, through cracks, and thus have become so incrusted. It was accordingly resolved to hold the next international congress of prehistoric archæologists at Lisbon, in 1880, mainly for the purpose of settling this question, if possible, by an investigation conducted upon the spot. In the course of a visit made at that time to Otta, several artificial specimens were found on the surface by different searchers, but Professor Bellucci, of Perugia, was fortunate enough to discover a flint flakein situ, still so closely imbedded in the deposit that it required to be detached by a hammer. There is no question that this object was actually found in a Miocene deposit, but unfortunately it belongs to the doubtful category of external flakes, which, although they exhibit the “bulb of percussion,” have no other sure indication that they are the work of man.[FI]As such bulbs can be produced by natural causes, some stronger proof than this of the existence of Tertiary man is demanded.

[FI]It has been figured by Bellucci,Archivio per l’Anthropologia e la Etnologia di Firenze, tome xi, p. 12, tav. iv, fig. 2. To me it possesses no value as evidence.

These are all the localities in Europe claimed by Mortillet to have furnished such evidence, but he thinks a strong confirmation of it is afforded by certain discoveries made in the auriferous gravels of California. I will not occupy space here in repeating arguments I have brought forward elsewhere to show the utter insufficiency of this evidence to prove the existence of man on the Pacific coast of our continent during the Pliocene period,[FJ]They may all be summed up in the words of Le Conte: “The doubts in regard to thisextreme antiquity of man are of three kinds, viz.: 1. Doubts as to the Pliocene age of the gravels—they may be early Quaternary. 2. Doubts as to the authenticity of the finds—no scientist having seen any of them in situ. 3. Doubts as to the undisturbed conditions of the gravels, for auriferous gravels are especially liable to disturbance. The character of the implements said to have been found gives peculiar emphasis to this last doubt,for they are not Paleolithic, but Neolithic.”[FK]The question has been raised whether this archæological objection is applicable to the stone mortars, numerous examples of which have been found in the gravels, some of them quite recently.[FL]If the evidence brought forward by Professor Whitney and others were limited to these mortars, it might very well be claimed that they are neither Palæolithic nor Neolithic; that the smoothness of their surface is owing to their having been hollowed out of pebbles that have been polished and worn by natural forces. But Professor Whitney has cited numberless instances of “spear-heads,” "arrow-heads," “discoidal stones,” "stone beads," and “a hatchet” that have been found under precisely similar conditions as the mortars. So Mr. Becker has recently produced an affidavit of a certain Mr. Neale that in a tunnel run into the gravel in 1877 “between two hundred and three hundred feet beyond the edge of the solid lava, he saw several spear-heads nearly one foot in length.”[FM]Now it cannot be questioned that such objects as these clearly belong to the Neolithic period, which does not imply that all the objects used at that time were polished, but that together with chipped implements “polished stone implements were also used.”[FN]No archæologist will believe that, while Palæolithic man has not yet been discovered in the Tertiary deposits of western Europe, the works of Neolithic man havebeen found in similar deposits in western America. Peculiar difficulties seem to surround the evidence brought forward in support of such an assumption. We are told by Professor Whitney that a stone mortar was “found standing upright, and the pestle was in it, in its proper place, just as it had been left by the owner.” He fails, however, to explain how this was brought about in a gravel deposit supposed to have been laid down by great floods of water. So, when Mr. Neale swears that he saw fifteen years ago in the same gravels spear-heads a great deal larger than those known to archæologists, may we not ask whether reliance can be placed on the memory of witnesses who testify to impossibilities to justify conclusions that rest upon such testimony? I think we shall have to wait for further and better evidence than this before we are called upon to admit that the existence of the Tertiary man upon our Pacific coast has been established.

[FJ]The Prehistoric Archæology of North America, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. i, pp. 850-356.

[FK]Le Conte,op. cit., p. 614.

[FL]Professor George Frederick Wright,Prehistoric Man on the Pacific Coast, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1891, p. 512;Table Mountain Archæology, Nation, May 21, 1891, p. 419.

[FM]Antiquities from under Tuolome Table Mountain in California, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. ii, p. 192.

[FN]Le Conte,op. cit., p. 607.

INDEX.

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