Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
In my work before cited,* I stated that M. Desnoyers, an observer
equally well versed in geology and archaeology, had disputed the
conclusion arrived at by MM. Tournal and Christol, that the fossil
rhinoceros, hyaena, bear, and other lost species had once been
inhabitants of France contemporaneously with Man.
(* "Principles" 9th edition page 739.)
"The flint hatchets and arrow-heads," he said, "and the pointed bones
and coarse pottery of many French and English caves, agree precisely in
character with those found in the tumuli, and under the dolmens (rude
altars of unhewn stone) of the primitive inhabitants of Gaul, Britain,
and Germany. The human bones, therefore, in the caves which are
associated with such fabricated objects, must belong not to antediluvian
periods, but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those who
constructed the tumuli and altars."
"In the Gaulish monuments," he added, "we find, together with the
objects of industry above mentioned, the bones of wild and domestic
animals of species now inhabiting Europe, particularly of deer, sheep,
wild boars, dogs, horses, and oxen. This fact has been ascertained in
Quercy and other provinces; and it is supposed by antiquaries that the
animals in question were placed beneath the Celtic altars in memory of
sacrifices offered to the Gaulish divinity Hesus, and in the tombs to
commemorate funeral repasts, and also from a superstition prevalent
among savage nations, which induces them to lay up provisions for
the manes of the dead in a future life. But in none of these ancient
monuments have any bones been found of the elephant, rhinoceros, hyaena,
tiger, and other quadrupeds, such as are found in caves, which might
certainly have been expected had these species continued to flourish at
the time that this part of Gaul was inhabited by Man."*
(* Desnoyers, "Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France"
tome 2 page 252; and article on Caverns, "Dictionnaire
Universelle d'Histoire Naturelle" Paris 1845.)
After giving no small weight to the arguments of M. Desnoyers, and
the writings of Dr. Buckland on the same subject, and myself visiting
several caves in Germany, I came to the opinion that the human bones
mixed with those of extinct animals, in osseous breccias and cavern
mud, in different parts of Europe, were probably not coeval. The caverns
having been at one period the dens of wild beasts, and having served
at other times as places of human habitation, worship, sepulture,
concealment, or defence, one might easily conceive that the bones of Man
and those of animals, which were strewed over the floors of subterranean
cavities, or which had fallen into tortuous rents connecting them
with the surface, might, when swept away by floods, be mingled in one
promiscuous heap in the same ossiferous mud or breccia.*
(* "Principles" 9th edition page 740.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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