Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
In both are found, mingled with the wreck of the Tertiary and Cretaceous
rocks of the vicinity, a large quantity of granitic sand and pebbles,
and occasionally large blocks of granite, from a few inches to a foot
or more in diameter. These blocks are peculiarly abundant in the lower
drift commonly called the "diluvium gris." The granitic materials are
traceable to a chain of hills called the Morvan, where the head waters
of the Yonne take their rise, 150 miles to the south-south-east of
Paris.
It was in this lowest gravel that M. H.T. Gosse, of Geneva, found, in
April 1860, in the suburbs of Paris, at La Motte Piquet, on the left
bank of the Seine, one or two well-formed flint implements of the Amiens
type, accompanied by a great number of ruder tools or attempts at tools.
I visited the spot in 1861 with M. Hebert, and saw the stratum from
which the worked flints had been extracted, 20 feet below the surface,
and near the bottom of the "grey diluvium," a bed of gravel from which
I have myself, in and near Paris, frequently collected the bones of the
elephant, horse, and other mammalia.
More recently, M. Lartet has discovered at Clichy, in the environs of
Paris, in the same lower gravel, a well-shaped flint implement of the
Amiens type, together with remains both of Elephas primigenius and
E. antiquus. No tools have yet been met with in any of the gravels
occurring at the higher levels of the valley of the Seine; but no
importance can be attached to this negative fact, as so little search
has yet been made for them.
Mr. Prestwich has observed contortions indicative of ice-action, of the
same kind as those near Amiens, in the higher-level drift of Charonne,
near Paris; but as yet no similar derangement has been seen in the
lower gravels--a fact, so far as it goes, in unison with the phenomena
observed in Picardy.
In the cavern of Arcy-sur-Yonne a series of deposits have lately been
investigated by the Marquis de Vibraye, who discovered human bones in
the lowest of them, mixed with remains of quadrupeds of extinct and
recent species. This cavern occurs in Jurassic limestone, at a slight
elevation above the Cure, a small tributary of the Yonne, which last
joins the Seine near Fontainebleau about 40 miles south of Paris. The
lowest formation in the cavern resembles the "diluvium gris" of Paris,
being composed of granitic materials, and like it derived chiefly from
the waste of the crystalline rocks of the Morvan. In it have been found
the two branches of a human lower jaw with teeth well-preserved, and
the bones of the Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus
spelaeus, Hyaena spelaea, and Cervus tarandus, all specifically
determined by M. Lartet. I have been shown this collection of fossils by
M. de Vibraye, and remarked that the human and other remains were in the
same condition and of the same colour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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