Let us now look more closely at the discoveries made in the various
caves referred to above, and also see what advances had been made by
geologists in other directions during the same period, as well as what
amount of progress has been made during the last twenty years. Dr.
Schmerling, the Belgian geologist and comparative anatomist, after
exploring the Engis and other caves in the province of Liège, published
an illustrated work, giving the results of his investigations, which
were highly interesting, and contributed largely to the establishment
of the theory of man’s antiquity. In these caves Schmerling found the
bones of the cave-bear, hyæna, elephant, and rhinoceros, together with
human bones, none of which gave any evidence of having been gnawed,
from which circumstance it was inferred that these caves had not
been the dwelling-places of wild beasts; and the fact that the bones
were scattered about without any order having been observed in their
distribution pointed to the conclusion that the caves had not been used
as burying-places. Probably, therefore, these remains had been washed
into the caves from time to time, and had gradually become covered
with deposit, and thus protected and preserved. There were no complete
skeletons found; but in the Engis cave were discovered the remains of
at least three human beings, the skull of one being embedded by the
side of a mammoth’s tooth, and in such a state of disintegration that
it fell to pieces on being moved; while the skull of another, an adult,
was buried, five feet deep, by the side of a tooth of a rhinoceros,
several bones of a horse, and some reindeer bones. Besides the bones,
there were also discovered some rude flint implements, a polished bone
needle, and other products of man’s industry, all embedded in the same
layer as the bones. It follows from these facts that man lived on the
banks of the Meuse at the same time as the rhinoceros, mammoth, hyæna,
and cave-bear, extinct animals of the Pleiocene and early Pleistocene
era.
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