The Existence of Man in the Tertiary Epoch

Abstract

IN the Bibliothèque Universelle et Revue Suisse for the 15 th February, M. Favre, in an article on the above subject, remarks that for some years the discovery of traces left by man of the pre-historic age on the earth have multiplied with a rapidity only explicable on the supposition that the population inhabiting a certain region of the globe was formerly abundant, and that numerous observers have recently applied themselves to the subject with extraordinary energy and zeal. He takes up the question whether the age of stone does or does not extend back to the tertiary period, and he thinks it will prove interesting to give a résumé of the various observations tending to show that man inhabited the earth at an epoch anterior to the great extension of the glaciers southwards, and during the tertiary epoch. On à priori grounds no substantial reasons can be advanced against the existence of man at the latter period. The temperate zone was then somewhat warmer than at present, and the temperature of Greeenland and Spitzbergen sufficiently agreeable to be adapted to the development of terrestrial mammals. But it is difficult to represent the duration of the period that elapsed between the end of the tertiary deposits and the termination of the glacial epoch. The portion of the quaternary period characterised by the enormous extension of the glaciers was very protracted, and many ages must have elapsed before the glaciers of the Alps were so large as to be able to transport erratic boulders to the height of 1352 metres on the Jura (near Soleure), and the glacier of the Rhone approximated the Rhine, or perhaps even reached it by passing across the cantons of Valais, of Vaud, of Freibourg, of Berne, of Soleure, and of Aargau. The form of the earth's surface must have presented to the eye of such old world inhabitants a very different aspect from that exhibited at present, and if they already existed in the middle tertiary period, they would have been contemporary with the upheaval of the Alps, and with an almost entirely distinct flora and fauna. Under these circumstances man would have to be included amongst the creatures who have survived two geological periods. M. Favre then proceeds to review the evidence that has at present been collected, embracing the following points:—First, the observations of M. Desnoyers in 1863 made at Saint-Prest near Chartres, but previously (1848) known to M. Boisvillette, and (1860) to MM. Langel and Lartel. Here, in a pliocene formation, were found the bones of the Elephas meridionalis, Hippopotamus major, Equus arnensis, Cervus carnulorum, and two other species of Cervus, Bos, Trojonotherium Cuvieri (a kind of large beaver), striated in such a manner as to convince.M. Desnoyers that the markings were the effects of the handiwork of man. This conclusion has, however, been contested by Sir C. Lyell; but in 1867 arrow or lance-head flint instruments were found in this spot by M. l'Abbé Bourgeois, one of which appeared to have been subjected to the action of fire, though this might have resulted from exposure to forests burning by the action of lightning. Soon afterwards M. Delaunay discovered markings of an analogous nature to the former, on the bone of a Halitherium at Pouancé (Maine et Loire) in a miocene formation containing the bones of Dinotherium. About the same time M. Bourgeois found similar flints in a still older formation (the calcareous strata of Beauce) at Thênay, and at Billy near Selles-sur-Cher. Some differences of opinion exist as to whether these flints are really worked by the hand of man; but the majority of those who have seen them, and are competent to judge, is decidedly in favour of that view. Nevertheless, M. Fraas observes that he has himself seen a lamina of silex become detached from a mass by the action of the sun's rays alone in Egypt; Livingstone and Dr. Wetzstein seem to have observed similar phenomena; and a point that now demands intelligent observation is the greater or less similarity such fragments detached by natural causes bear to the flint instruments or the masses from which they have been detached. He refers also to two fragments of the jaw of a Rhinoceros pleuroceros found in the lacustrian chalk of Limaque, and which appear to have, been grooved by man, which, however, he admits to be doubtful; and to, the observations of Whitney in California, which tend to show the existence of man anterior to the glacial epoch and to the period of the mastodon and elephant, at an epoch since which vertical erosion of the surface has taken place to the extent of two or three thousand feet of hard and crystallisable rocks. Finally he refers to the observations of M. Issel in Piedmont.