Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
On the right bank of the Meuse, on the opposite side of the river to
Engis, is the cavern of Engihoul. Bones of extinct animals mingled with
those of Man were observed to abound in both caverns; but with this
difference, that whereas in the Engis cave there were several human
crania and very few other bones, in Engihoul there occurred numerous
bones of the extremities belonging to at least three human individuals,
and only two small fragments of a cranium. The like capricious
distribution held good in other caverns, especially with reference to
the cave-bear, the most frequent of the extinct mammalia. Thus, for
example in the cave of Chokier, skulls of the bear were few, and other
parts of the skeleton abundant, whereas in several other caverns these
proportions were exactly reversed, while at Goffontaine skulls of
the bear and other parts of the skeleton were found in their natural
numerical proportions. Speaking generally, it may be said that human
bones, where any were met with, occurred at all depths in the cave-mud
and gravel, sometimes above and sometimes below those of the bear,
elephant, rhinoceros, hyaena, etc.
Some rude flint implements of the kind commonly called flint knives or
flakes, of a triangular form in the cross section (as in Figure 14),
were found by Schmerling dispersed generally through the cave-mud, but
he was too much engrossed with his osteological inquiries to collect
them diligently. He preserved some few of them, however, which I have
seen in the museum at Liege. He also discovered in the cave of Chokier,
2 1/2 miles south-west from Liege, a polished and jointed needle-shaped
bone, with a hole pierced obliquely through it at the base; such a
cavity, he observed, as had never given passage to an artery. This
instrument was embedded in the same matrix with the remains of a
rhinoceros.*
(* Schmerling part 2 page 177.)
Another cut bone and several artificially-shaped flints were found in
the Engis cave, near the human skulls before alluded to. Schmerling
observed, and we shall have to refer to the fact in the sequel (Chapter
8), that although in some forty fossiliferous caves explored by
him human bones were the exception, yet these flint implements were
universal, and he added that "none of them could have been subsequently
introduced, being precisely in the same position as the remains of
the accompanying animals." "I therefore," he continues, "attach great
importance to their presence; for even if I had not found the human
bones under conditions entirely favourable to their being considered
as belonging to the antediluvian epoch, proofs of Man's existence would
still have been supplied by the cut bones and worked flints."*
(* Schmerling, part 2 page 179.)
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