Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
Above the grey gravel is a bed of red alluvium, made up of fragments of
Jurassic limestone, in a red argillaceous matrix, in which were embedded
several flint knives, with bones of the reindeer and horse, but no
extinct mammalia. Over this, in a higher bed of alluvium, were several
polished hatchets of the more modern type called "celts," and above all
loam or cave-mud, in which were Gallo-Roman antiquities.*
(* "Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France" 1860.)
The French geologists have made as yet too little progress in
identifying the age of the successive deposits of ancient alluvium of
various parts of the basin of the Seine, to enable us to speculate with
confidence as to the coincidence in date of the granitic gravel with
human bones of the Grotte d'Arcy and the stone-hatchets buried in "grey
diluvium" of La Motte Piquet, before mentioned; but as the associated
extinct mammalia are of the same species in both localities, I feel
strongly inclined to believe that the stone hatchets found by M. Gosse
at Paris, and the human bones discovered by M. de Vibraye, may be
referable to the same period.
VALLEY OF THE OISE.
A flint hatchet, of the old Abbeville and Amiens type, was found lately
by M. Peigne Delacourt at Precy, near Creil, on the Oise, in gravel,
resembling, in its geological position, the lower-level gravels of
Montiers, near Amiens, already described. I visited these extensive
gravel-pits in 1861, in company with Mr. Prestwich; but we remained
there too short a time to entitle us to expect to find a flint
implement, even if they had been as abundant as at St. Acheul.
In 1859, I examined, in a higher part of the same valley of the
Oise, near Chauny and Noyon, some fine railway cuttings, which passed
continuously through alluvium of the Pleistocene period for half a
mile. All this alluvium was evidently of fluviatile origin, for, in
the interstices between the pebbles, the Ancylus fluviatilis and other
freshwater shells were abundant. My companion, the Abbe E. Lambert,
had collected from the gravel a great many fossil bones, among which M.
Lartet has recognised both Elephas primigenius and E. antiquus, besides
a species of hippopotamus (H. major?), also the reindeer, horse, and the
musk ox (Bubalus moschatus). The latter seems never to have been seen
before in the old alluvium of France.*
(* Lartet, "Annales des Sciences Naturelles Zoologiques"
tome 15 page 224.)
Over the gravel above mentioned, near Chauny, are seen dense masses of
loam like the loess of the Rhine, containing shells of the genera
Helix and Succinea. We may suppose that the gravel containing the flint
hatchet at Precy is of the same age as that of Chauny, with which it is
continuous, and that both of them are coeval with the tool-bearing beds
of Amiens, for the basins of the Oise and the Somme are only separated
by a narrow water-shed, and the same fossil quadrupeds occur in both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account