# Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
THE RIVER-DRIFT HUNTER OF THE PLEISTOCENE AGE AND HIS SURROUNDINGS.
Great Britain in the Early Pleistocene Age.
In the Pleiocene age the North Sea extended, as we have shown in Fig 10, over a large part of Norfolk and Suffolk. At its close this area was lifted up above the waves, and probably the greater part of it became dry land, over which the early Pleistocene mammalia roamed with complete freedom, leaving their remains in the ​river deposits, to be dredged up by the fishermen of the present time in the North Sea in incredible numbers. Our western seaboard then was probably marked by the hundred-fathom line, sweeping far to the west and north of Ireland, and southwards across the mouth of the Channel. In all probability the geographical conditions of Britain at this time were identical with those of the late Pleistocene (see Fig. 32, p. 150), when our country formed part of the continent.
Early Pleistocene Forests.
The early Pleistocene vegetation covering Britain is represented by the specimens collected by the Rev. S. W. King, in 1861, from the forest bed and lignite beds of the Norfolk shore, and identified by Professor Heer. The forests then growing in the area of the North Sea consisted of Scotch firs, spruces and yews, oaks and birches, with an undergrowth of sloes. In the marshes there were alders, osmund royal, and marsh trefoil; the rivers were gay with the blossoms of the yellow and white water-lilies; and in the pools there were horn- worts and pond weeds. In this list, as Sir Charles Lyell remarks, only one species, the spruce, is not now indigenous in Britain. The history of the arrival of this tree in Europe is very remarkable. Professor Heer, in his description of the fossil plants discovered in Grinnell Land by Captain Fielden, describes the spruce among the Meiocene plants of the Arctic region. "We therefore see that our spruce was living during the Meiocene period in Grinnell Land as well as in North Spitzbergen, and at that time doubtless extended as far as the Pole, at least if any dry land then existed there. In Europe the ​tree did not then exist; hence very probably it had its original home in the extreme north, and has since extended southwards. We first meet it in Europe in the forest bed of the Norfolk coast, and in the interglacial lignites of Switzerland. At that time, therefore, it had come into our regions, and has ever since formed a principal constituent of our forests. Its extreme northern limit is now in Scandinavia, latitude 691/2° N.; and it is now spread over about 25° of latitude, whilst during the Meiocene period it was limited to the Arctic zone."
Mammalia inhabiting Early Pleistocene Forests.
If the reader could have penetrated these forests of the North Sea, he would have found himself in the midst of a group of animals of very singular character. Were he conversant with those of the Pleiocene age, he would have recognised the following species:—Two kinds of elephants, both of gigantic size (E. antiquus and E. meridionalis), two kinds of rhinoceros (R. etruscus and R. megarhinus) from time to time would have appeared before him, and he would have had to guard himself against the attacks of the sabre-toothed lion (Machairodus) and the bear of Auvergne. He might have hunted Sedgwick's deer, an animal with wonder- fully complex antlers (identical with the C. dicranios of Nesti, of the Val d'Arno (Fig. 16), as well as the deer of Polignac), and on the sides of the rivers he might have seen the African hippopotamus. All these species are to be looked upon as survivals from the preceding ​period, and, with the exception of the last, none are now living on the earth.
Fig. 25.—Cervus verticornis, Dawk., Forest Bed, 1/4.
He would also have seen animals unknown in the Pleiocene age, some extinct, while others now form part of the fauna of temperate Europe and Asia. To the former belong the great hairy mammoth (Fig. 22), the Irish elk, and two large deer (Cervus verticornis, Fig. 25, and Cervus carnutorum), a large beaver (Trogontherium), and the great cave bear, while the latter are represented by many species. In the woodlands and plains there were wild oxen (uri), stags, and roe-deer; in the rivers and streams, beavers and ​water-rats; while among the smaller animals were the common shrew, the musk shrew (now inhabiting the banks of the Volga), and the common mole. Had he entered these forests in the autumn, he would have seen the wild boars eagerly seeking for acorns as they fell from the trees, and overhead squirrels feasting on the cones of the Scotch fir.
These living and extinct species formed the advanced guard of the Asiatic invasion of Europe at the close of the Pleiocene age, as described in the last chapter, which was probably due to the lowering of the temperature, by which animals hitherto living in Asia were driven to the south and west by the increasing cold in the northern regions. Their arrival marks the first phase of the Pleistocene age in Britain. They belong to the following species:—
Fauna of Forest-Bed.
Survivals from Pleiocene, Living Species.
Survivals from Pleiocene, Extinct Species.
New Comers, Living Species.
New Comers, Extinct Species.
The proportion of eight Pleiocene survivals as compared with twenty incoming species in a total of twenty-eight, marks the enormous revolution which took place in the fauna of Europe at the close of the Pleiocene age, a revolution that is still further emphasised by the living species, amounting to no less than thirteen, as compared with the solitary living Pleiocene species.
Physical Relations of Forest-Bed.
The forest-bed, in which the fauna and flora above mentioned are met with, extends from the base of the cliffs of Norfolk from between high and low water mark out to sea, passing inland under the cliff, in which it is covered up by strata that testify to the gradual lowering ​of the temperature after the forest-bed ceased to flourish. In No. 3 of the accompanying section, Mr. Nathorst, an eminent Swedish botanist, remarked in 1872 not only that the plants of the forest-bed became very much dwarfed in size, but that two new forms appear, now only found in severe climates; the polar willow (Salix polaris), now living within the Arctic circle, and a moss (Hypnum turgescens) common to the Arctic regions and
Fig. 26.—Physical Relations of Forest-bed.
1. Upper chalk, with flints. 2. Forest-bed, with stumps of trees and fossil mammalia. 3. Fluvio-marine sands and clays, with beds of lignite. 4. Boulder clay. 5. Contorted drift. 6. Sands and gravels.
the summits of lofty mountains. The fluvio-marine sands and clays imply also a change of level, by which the trees of the forest were brought within the reach of the waves of the sea. Above them is the boulder clay, No. 4, containing large blocks of granite and other igneous rocks, which have been transported by ice possibly from Scandinavia. This stratum corresponds with the older boulder clay of Messrs. Harmer and Searles Wood.
​The sands and red marls forming of No. 5 owe their singular contortions and foldings probably to the grounding of large masses of ice, as well as to the subsequent melting of ice on which some parts of them had been originally deposited. The Forest-bed of this section is to be seen along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk from Cromer as far as Pakefield, where it has been protected by the thick covering of sands and clays seen in the section, from the denuding forces, by which the traces of both forest and animals have been removed from other parts of Britain. Close on the destruction of the forest followed the depression of temperature marked in the lignites. No. 3, which arrived at its maximum in the period of the boulder drift, No. 4, when the area was invaded by icebergs. This was accompanied by a considerable geographical change. The North Sea rolled over both forests and lignites, and had become sufficiently deep, in Norfolk and Suffolk, to allow of icebergs depositing their burden to form the covering of boulder clay resting on the lignites and fluvio-marine strata.
Early Pleistocene Forests in France.
The forests of France, according to the recent investigations of the Count de Saporta, present a regular series of changes in the Meiocene, Pleiocene, and Pleistocene ages, the tropical species gradually and successively retreating farther to the south. Under the present climatal conditions the species of fig-tree, known as Ficus carica, essentially a southern form, is not found farther north than 45° in central France, except under ​artificial conditions, ranging, however, farther northwards on the Atlantic coast-line under the mild and equable climate caused by the Gulf Stream. At Moret, near Fontainbleau, it flourished in the Pleistocene age about 4° farther north, and is proved by its numerous leaves and well-ripened fruits to have occupied an important place in the forest-clad valley of the Seine south of Paris. It was associated with ashes, sycamores, hoary poplars, grey and crack willows, spindle-trees, box, Judas-tree, and hazels. Ivy and clematis crept round the branches and hung in festoons overhead, while below were luxuriant clusters of the fronds of the hart's-tongue fern. The presence of the Ficus carica and the Judas-tree in this flora implies that the climate was equable, and that there were no winter frosts, such as those which check their growth so far north as Fontainbleau at the present time. In the late stage of the Pleistocene the winters were far more severe than at the present time in France and Britain, and from the evidence of the section of the Norfolk cliffs, there is reason to believe that there were severe winter frosts in the period immediately succeeding the Forest-bed. The forest of Moret, therefore, is referred to an early stage of the Pleistocene, and taken to be the equivalent of the pre-glacial forest of Norfolk. Here, however, it will be noted that the northern types, such as the Scotch fir, abound, while the southern are not represented; a difference which may be explained satisfactorily by the difference of latitude between Moret and Norfolk. As the evidence stands at present, the zone of northern forests in which the conifers are abundant is not met with at low elevations in France either in the Pleiocene or in the early Pleistocene periods.
The animals inhabiting the area of the Seine, while ​this variety of fig-tree and the Judas-tree formed part of the forests, are represented by the remains found at St. Prest, near Chartres, proving that the banks of the Eure were haunted by the horse, the southern elephant (E. meridionalis), the Etruskan rhinoceros (R. etruscus), a large extinct deer (Cervus carnutorum), and the large extinct beaver (Trogontherium). All these are found, as we have already seen, in the Forest-bed of Norfolk.
Evidence of Man in Early Pleistocene Strata doubtful.
In 1863 certain cut bones, discovered in the deposit of St. Prest above mentioned, were considered by M. J. Desnoyers to be the work of man, and to imply his presence during the time of the deposit of the fluviatile strata in which they were buried. Some of these marks have been shown experimentally by Sir Charles Lyell to be capable of production by the gnawing of rodents, while others appear to Sir John Lubbock "to be probably of human origin." Their artificial character is accepted by most of the French archaeologists, and supported by the discovery of flints worked by the hand of man, by the Abbé Bourgeois. Unfortunately, however, there is some doubt as to the precise stratum in which these were found. On the whole, it is more prudent to follow Sir John Lubbock in putting this evidence to a "suspense account," rather than to take it to show that man was living in the early Pleistocene age. We will therefore ​leave the question open, to be solved by future dis- coveries, with the remark that in this case there is no inherent improbability of its being answered in the affirmative, as in the alleged cases of man's presence in more ancient deposits, since numerous mammalia now living in Europe were then in possession of the land.
The Mid-Pleistocene Mammalia.
A group of animals, differing in many important particulars from the above, has been met with at Ilford and Grays Thurrock in Essex, at Erith and Crayford in Kent, and at Clacton on the Essex coast. They differ from the early Pleistocene group chiefly in the absence of most of the Pleiocene survivals, as well as by the incoming of species hitherto unknown, among which man is to be reckoned.
The extraordinary mixture of forms will be seen from the examination of the following table, in which the survivals have been separated from the newcomers, constituting fifteen out of a total of twenty-six species. The extraordinary deer of the Forest-bed are no longer to be seen, and the Etruskan rhinoceros has been replaced by the leptorhine or small-nosed rhinoceros of Owen. The woolly rhinoceros, the companion of the mammoth in its wanderings from the steppes of northern Siberia as far south as the Alps and Pyrenees, appears for the first time. It must also be remarked that the valley of the lower Thames is the only place known where the woolly and leptorhine rhinoceros are found side by side with the big-nosed species. The southern elephant, which survived from the Pleiocene into the early Pleistocene stage, is no longer present, and had either become extinct ​or had retreated southwards from Britain and France into Italy.
Mid Pleistocene Mammalia.
Survivals from, Early Pleistocene—Living Species = 11.
| | | Ilford. | Grays Thurrock | Crayford, Erith. |
| Brown bear................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Ursus arctos................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Wolf................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Canis lupus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Fox................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | C. vulpes................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | — |
| Stag................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Cervus elaphus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Roe................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | C. capreolus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | — |
| Urus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Bos primigenius................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Hippopotamus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Hippopotamus major................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | — |
| Horse................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Equus caballus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Wild boar................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Sus scrofa................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | — |
| Beaver................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Castor fiber................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | — |
| Water rat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Arvicola amphibia................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | — |
Survivals from Early Pleistocene—Extinct Species = 4.
| Irish elk................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Megaceros hibernicus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Big-nosed Rhinoceros................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Rhinoceros megarhinus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Mammoth................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Elephas primigenius................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Straight-tusked elephant................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | E. antiquus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
Newcomers—Living Species = 9.
| Man................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Man................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | — | X |
| Lion................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Felis leo................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Wild cat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Felis catus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | — |
| Spotted hyæna................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Hyæna crocuta................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | X |
| Otter................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Lutra vulgaris................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | — |
| Grisly bear................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Ursus ferox................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Bison................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Bison priscus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Bison................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Bison priscus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
| Musk sheep................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Ovibos moschatus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | X |
| Marmot................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | Spermophilus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | — | X | X |
Newcomers—Extinct Species = 2.
| Woolly rhinoceros................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | R. tichorhinus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | — | X |
| Small-nosed rhinoceros................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | R. leptorhinus, Ow. (= R. hemitœchus, Falc)................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X | X |
Evidence of the Presence of Man.
Fig. 27.—Flint flake, Lower Brick-earths, Erith, 1/1. Man is proved to have belonged to this fauna by the discovery, in 1872, in my presence, of a flint flake in the lower brick-earths at Crayford, by the Rev. Osmond Fisher. It was in situ in No. 2 of Fig. 31, in the same stratum of gravel in which I discovered the skull of the musk-bull in 1866, now preserved in the Museum of the Geological Survey. Subsequently, in 1876, a second implement was found in the same series of beds at Erith, also in situ, at a point about two inches above the shell-band in the pits. It is a roughly-chipped flake, considerably worn by use (Fig. 27). It may be remarked that this form of cutting implement, so abundant, as we shall see, in the late Pleistocene age, was used also in the Neolithic and Bronze ages, ultimately being employed within the Historic period by the Egyptians and by the Romanised Britons of Sussex and Kent, in whose tombs it was placed from ​some superstitious motive. This form, the simplest for cutting purposes, is also the earliest trace of man in this country, as it is the latest survival from the Palæolithic age. From its distribution almost over the whole earth, wherever the ancient remains of man have been explored—in Europe, Africa, India, Japan, and the Americas—it might have been inferred to be one of the oldest implements invented by mankind. Its discovery in two separate spots establishes the fact that man was living in the valley of the lower Thames before the arctic mammalia had taken full possession of the valley of the Thames, and before the big-nosed rhinoceros had become extinct. In no other locality have the traces of man been discovered, up to this time, in association with the remains of this animal.
The primeval hunter, who followed the chase in the lower valley of the Thames, armed with his rude implements of flint, must have found abundance of food and have had great difficulty in guarding himself against the wild animals. Innumerable horses, large herds of stags, uri, and bison, were to be seen in the open country; while the Irish elk and the roe were comparatively rare. Three kinds of rhinoceros and two kinds of elephant lived in the forests. The hippopotamus haunted the banks of the Thames, as well as the beaver, the water-rat, and the otter. There were wolves, also, and foxes, brown bears and grisly bears, wild cats and lions of enormous size. Wild boars lived in the thickets: and as the night came on, the hyænas assembled in packs to hunt down the young, the wounded, and the infirm.
The Arctic Mammalia present.
The most important point to be remarked after the presence of man is that of two animals now only found in cold climates—the musk sheep (see Fig. 31) and the pouched marmot. The latter has been recently obtained by Mr. Flaxman Spurrell, with the bones in such a position as to prove that the animals had been surprised by floods while hibernating, and drowned. The first of these is now only to be found within the Arctic circle in America, while the second lives in the mountainous regions of Europe and the colder climates of Asia. They prove that the arctic mammalia were then in Britain.
Physical Relations of Mid Pleistocene Strata.
Fig. 28.—Lower Brick-earths, Uphall, Ilford.
The physical relations of these strata, containing the traces of man and remains of the mammalia, are very interesting from the possibility that they may belong to a time before the glacial climate had set in. At Ilford, for example. Fig. 28, the strata may be divided into three groups, deposited under different conditions. ​The lower fluviatile strata, 1 to 4, are full of river shells, and bones and teeth of animals, among which those of the mammoth were incredibly abundant, its remains in Sir Antonio Brady's collection alone being estimated by Mr. Woodward to belong to more than one hundred individuals. Above these strata is a layer of clay, brick-earth, and gravel, No. 5, irregular and twisted, and folded in a very remarkable way, somewhat after the manner of the contorted drift on the Norfolk coast above mentioned. It contains pebbles of quartz, Lydian stone, sandstone, angular and waterworn flints, and fragments of grey wethers, one of which weighed 26 pounds. Some of the pebbles are imbedded with their long axes vertical, and therefore could not have been deposited by the action of water. This singular stratum, termed "loess" by Prestwich and "trail" by Fisher, bears unmistakable signs of having been accumulated by the action of ice, which has caught up the various materials of which it is formed, and deposited them on melting with the utmost irregularity. It proves that the climate at the time was more severe than that which prevailed while the mammaliferous strata below were being formed.
Above it the surface is composed of the ordinary rainwash of the district, fine red loam, No. 6, which has been accumulated under the climatal conditions of the present time. It contrasts with the bed on which it rests in its homogeneous nature.
Fig. 29.—Upper true molar of Rhinoceros megarhinus, 1/1.
young and old being represented, as may be seen from Figs. 29, 30. It is also repeated on the other side of the
Fig. 30.—Upper milk molars of Rhinoceros megarhinus, 1/2.
Fig. 31.—Lower Brick-earths of Stoneham's Pit, Crayford.
It seems to me very probable that "the trail," which undoubtedly has been accumulated under severe climatal conditions, may be the equivalent of the boulder clays found on the northern side of the lower Thames in Essex and Hertfordshire. In that case the remains of man and ​of the other animals, buried in the fluviatile strata below, may be considered preglacial. If, however, it be referred to the action of the snows and the frosts of the late Pleistocene age, the strata in question, from their position below, must be older than that age. The mammalia then inhabiting the district are intermediate in character between those of the forest-bed and those of the late Pleistocene strata, and lived in that area before the cold was sufficiently severe to drive away the big-nosed rhinoceros, and cause the feeding grounds of the stags, fallow deer, and uri, to be enjoyed by the countless herds of reindeer and bisons.
Level not an Absolute Test of Age.
For these reasons, these river-deposits in the valley of the Thames and at Clacton are taken to be older than those of the late Pleistocene so widely distributed through middle and southern England, and they may date back to the preglacial age, as Dr. Falconer inferred from the study of the mammalia. They are, on the other hand, assigned by Professor Prestwich to a late period in the Pleistocene age because they are at a low level. The use of relative levels as a test of age is, however, valid only under two conditions. The valley must be assumed to have been cut down by the stream flowing along the bottom, and the fluviatile deposits to have been formed at different levels as the river bottom became lowered. It must also be assumed that the land ​has remained stationary at one level above the sea. The valley of the lower Thames was probably excavated in the Pleiocene age, and is proved by the large sheets of boulder clay and the marine shingle in Essex and Hertfordshire to have been submerged after the end of the early Pleistocene age. It was re-elevated while the late Pleistocene deposits were being formed in the area between Oxford and the mouth of the Thames. Here, then, as in the case of the submarine forest-bed of Norfolk, we cannot consider that the age is settled by the level. The lower brick-earths seem to me to be isolated patches of a series of fluviatile deposits, of which the higher and more exposed portions have been destroyed by the rain, rivers, snow, ice, and sea, and other agents ever at work in re-modelling the surface of the earth.
Mid Pleistocene Caverns.
It is a very singular and striking fact, that although caverns must have existed in all ages of the earth's history, and have been used for shelter by the animals, there are none older than the mid Pleistocene times. There is every reason to believe that they were haunted by the Eocene, Meiocene, and Pleiocene beasts of prey, and that the anoplotheres and palæotheres, the deino- theres and mastodons, the deer and the antelopes, were either dragged in by the carnivores, or swept in by the flow of water, after the same manner as the remains of the successive groups of animals have been introduced which have inhabited Europe from the Pleistocene age down to the present day. Why then do we not meet with ossiferous caverns of those times? The simple answer is to be found in the realisation of the enormous ​destruction of the land which has taken place in the long lapse of ages, to which attention has already been directed in treating of the Meiocene period. In my opinion there have been ossiferous caverns in all geological periods, but they and all shelters then accessible to animals, together with the rocks in which they were hollowed, have been carried away so completely that no traces of any caverns of those times have been discovered in any part of the world. The rain, the alternation of heat and cold, the carbonic acid in the atmosphere, the acids evolved from decaying vegetation, and the breakers on the sea-shore, have wrought this wholesale destruction so thoroughly that there are only two caverns that can be said to be even as old as the mid Pleistocene. In one of these, at Oreston near Plymouth, Mr. Whidbey discovered the remains of the big-nosed rhinoceros in the year 1816. The other is at Baume, in the Jura, in which the remains described by Professors Lartet and Gervais were found, belonging to the machairodus, a non-tichorine rhinoceros, to the ox, wild boar, elephant, spotted hyæna, and cave bear. In both these the mammalia are identical with those of the mid Pleistocene, with the exception of the machairodus, which must, however, have been living at that time, since it occurs in mid and late Pleistocene strata.
The Lignites of Dürnten present no Traces of Man.
The lignites of Dürnten and Utznach, before mentioned, reveal to us the forests covering the Cantons of Zurich and St. Gall during the mid Pleistocene age, and which still continue to flourish in the same region. They consisted of spruce firs (Pinus abies), Scotch firs, and mountain pines (P. sylvestris and P. montana), larches, yews, birches, and sycamores, with an undergrowth of hazel. In them were to be met the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), the big-nosed rhinoceros (R. Merkii, Jäger), the urus, and the stag, all of which lived in the mid Pleistocene period in the area of the lower Thames. These deposits of lignite, formed on the swampy sides of a lake, rest on a series of clays with stones that have been deposited by a retreating glacier, and they are also covered with a similar deposit of a glacier which occupied that area after the disappearance of the forest, and they are therefore interglacial.
To the animals found in the lignite beds, Professors Rütimeyer and Schwendauer have added man, on data which seem to me unsatisfactory. Several sticks about the size and shape of a cigar, with their outsides enveloped by fibres running at right angles to their long axes, are considered to be the remains of a kind of fossil basket-work. In the summer of 1877, on examining these specimens at Basel, thanks to the kindness of Professor Rütimeyer, I was struck by their resemblance to knots out of rotten pine trunks, in which a similar form is frequently to be observed. As the woody fibre of the ​trunk decays the hard resinous knots stand out in relief, and taper to a point as they approach the central pith of the tree, in the same way as those at Dürnten. They are, moreover, covered superficially by fibres of the trunk crossing those of the knots at right angles, or nearly so, precisely in the same way. The fossil specimens have been proved, by microscopical examination, to be composed of the wood of the spruce. Under these circumstances I have but little doubt of their being knots out of a decayed fir-tree without marks of the handiwork of man, and I cannot look upon them as evidence of the existence of man in Switzerland in interglacial times.
The Late Pleistocene Mammalia.
We pass now to the examination of the late Pleistocene deposits in Great Britain, in which artificially chipped implements, found in considerable numbers over a wide area, testify to the presence of man in this country for a very long period of time, reserving for the next chapter the evidence on the point offered by the bone caverns.
In the late Pleistocene river beds, and in the caves, the fauna is the same, and both are referable to the same geological horizon, marked by the arctic mammals being in possession of the land, as may be seen in the following table:—
Mammalia found in Late Pleistocene River Strata and Caverns in Britain.
Survivals from Early and Mid Pleistocene—Living Species = 22.
| | River Strata. | Ossiferous Caverns. |
| Man................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Shrew................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Grisly bear................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Otter................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Fox................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Wolf................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Spotted hyæna................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Lion................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Wild cat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Horse................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Brown's fallow-deer................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | |
| Roe................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Stag................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Urus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | |
| Bison................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Hippopotamus................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Wild boar................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Water rat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Red field vole................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Hare................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Beaver................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Mouse................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
Survivals from Early and Mid Pleistocene Extinct Species = 6.
| Cave bear................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Small-nosed rhinoceros................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Woolly rhinoceros................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Irish elk................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Mammoth................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Straight-tusked elephant................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
New Forms—Living Species = 17.
| Lynx................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Leopard................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Caffer cat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X ​ |
| Marten................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Stoat................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Weasel................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Badger................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Short-tailed field vole................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Continental field vole................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Russian vole................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Pouched marmot................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Arctic lemming................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Norwegian lemming................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Reindeer................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | X | X |
| Arctic fox................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
| Glutton................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ | | X |
To this list of the new species must be added the Alpine hare of Scotland and Ireland, which most probably arrived in Britain along wdth the other arctic mammalia, and possibly also the rabbit, although the evidence offered by the frequent discovery of its remains in the caverns is rendered doubtful by its burrowing habits.
The arctic mammalia in this latest phase of the Pleistocene period were in full possession of the land, and the only two survivors from the Pleiocene age are the extinct Machairodus latidens and the hippopotamus.
The Late Pleistocene Geography.
The remains of the late Pleistocene animals lie scattered over a large area in Britain, and it is necessary to conclude from their presence that our country formed part of the mainland of Europe at that time. This hypothesis is proved by their occurrence in various places now covered by the sea, as, for example, the ​mammoths found in Holyhead Harbour, off Torquay, off the coast of Sussex, and in the North Sea. On the Dogger Bank the accumulation of bones, teeth, and antlers is so great that Mr. J. J. Owles, of Yarmouth, collected more than 300 specimens from the fishermen, who casually bring them up in their nets and dredges. They belong to the bear, wolf, spotted hyæna, Irish elk, reindeer, stag, urus, bison, horse, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and beaver, and are to be viewed as the remains of animals living in the district at that time, and deposited by a river current, great with small, as in the case of similar accumulations on the land. Had they been deposited by the sea they would have been sifted by the action of the waves, and the smaller would have been heaped together in one place, and the larger in another. The dead carcases had evidently been collected in the eddies of a river that helped to form the Dogger Bank, which rises to within eight fathoms of the sea-level. Other testimony as to the former elevation of the British area is afforded by the discovery of a freshwater mussel (Unio pictorum) at a depth of 50 to 100 fathoms, recorded by Mr. Godwin Austen, in the English Channel, not very far from the point in the map where the river (see Fig. 32) entered the Atlantic. From this point the 100-fathom line passes southwards to the coast of Spain, and northwards far away to the west of Ireland, turning eastward, north of the Orkneys, in the direction of Norway, and dividing the gently undulating surface of the plateau now submerged on the east from the depths of the Atlantic on the west. This we may ​accept with Godwin Austen, De la Beche, and Lyell, as the Atlantic coast-line at this time. On the north, a narrow tract of sea, from 200 to 300 fathoms deep, separated the British land from the coast of Norway.
Fig. 32.—Geography of Britain in Late Pleistocene Age.
​From these lines of reasoning it may be concluded that Britain stood at least 600 feet above its present level, and that the rivers of our eastern coast, the Thames, Medway, Humber, Tyne, and others, joined the Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe, to form a river flowing through the valley of the German Ocean, as represented in the map. In like manner, the rivers of the south of England, and of the north of France, formed a great river flowing past the Channel Islands due west into the Atlantic, and the Severn united with the rivers of the south of Ireland; while those to the east of Ireland joined the Dee, Mersey, Kibble, and Lune, as well as those of western Scotland, ultimately reaching the Atlantic to the west of the Hebrides. The watershed between the valleys of the British Channel and he North Sea is represented by a ridge passing due south from Folkestone to Dieppe, and that between the drainage area of the Severn and its tributaries on the one hand, and of the Irish Channel on the other, by a ridge from Holyhead westward to Dublin.
This tract of low undulating land which surrounded Britain and Ireland on every side consisted not merely of rich hill, valley, and plain, but also of marsh land studded with lakes, like the meres of Norfolk, now indicated by the deeper soundings. These lakes were very numerous to the south of the Isle of Wight, and off the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Range of the Late Pleistocene Mammals over Britain and Ireland.
If the dotted surface of the Map, Fig. 32, be examined, representing the areas in which the remains of the late Pleistocene animals have been found, it will be noted that they are distributed very irregularly in the river deposits. The greater part of Wales, as well as the hilly parts of northern Yorkshire, including Cumberland and Westmoreland, have not as yet furnished any evidence of the former existence of these animals. In Scotland the mammoth and the reindeer have been met with in the lowlands; and the former has been discovered, according to Mr. Paton, in Caithness.
In Ireland the mammoth has been found in the counties of Cavan, Galway, Antrim, and Waterford, and in the Shandon cave, near Dungarvan, in the first of these counties, along with the grisly bear, wolf, fox, horse, stag, and alpine hare. This irregularity in the distribution of the animal remains is intimately connected with the geographical and climatal changes which were going on in the obscure and complicated portion of the late Pleistocene age known as the glacial period.
On taking every point of view into consideration, Mr. Jamieson's opinion, that the mammoth was in Scotland before the glacial period, seems to me to be true; and it is highly probable that all the Irish mammalia mentioned above are preglacial. In that case these animals must be looked upon as the representatives of a fauna, ​the remains of which happen to have been preserved, in spite of the erosion of the surface by the glaciers and the dash of the waves on the sea-shore, during the repeated depressions and elevations of the land described in the last chapter.
The presence of the late Pleistocene mammalia in the river deposits later than the boulder clays as far as the North Riding of Yorkshire, proves that they were in Britain after the land had been elevated above the sea, in which the icebergs had deposited their burdens of upper boulder clay in the midland and northern counties. They were, however, living in the south of England and in France, while the boulder clays and marine sands were being accumulated in the area north of London and Bristol. As this rose above the sea, they gradually passed farther north, and it is very probable that they were prevented from invading Ireland and Scotland by a barrier of sea, and that the higher parts of the country were rendered inaccessible by the glaciers, as yet unmelted.
Thus we may picture to ourselves southern and eastern Britain as inhabited by an abundant mammalian fauna during the last phase of the Pleistocene age; while ice and sea acted as barriers to the free migration which afterwards took place over the whole country in the Prehistoric age. We must further realise that all the climatal and geographical changes, known as glacial, happened while the late Pleistocene mammalia were living in the regions not covered by glaciers or overwhelmed by sea, and that they wandered to and fro as the barriers to their migration were altered. The glacial period did not define one fauna from another, and the only mark it made on the mammalian life was to push ​the arctic division farther down to the south as the cold increased, and, as it waned, to allow of their coming northwards again.
The Late Pleistocene River-deposits.
Superficial deposits containing the remains of the late Pleistocene animals swept down by the floods are present in most of the river-valleys in the eastern, central, and southern portions of Great Britain. They consist of sand, gravel, and loam, or brick earth, and are found sometimes below the level of the present streams, as, for example, in the lower Thames in the neighbourhood of London, or, as is usually the case, on the sides at various elevations above the water-level. They are proved by the presence of shells of fresh-water mussels, fresh-water snails, and others, to have been accumulated at the bottom of rivers which have cut their way down to, or below, their present level since they were formed. From this we may conclude that the present system of hill and valley was then sketched out, but that in some places the valleys have been considerably deepened by the erosive action of the stream; while in others their lower parts have been filled up in the late Pleistocene age.
Sometimes the river flowed over what is now the top of a hill or the top of a cliff, as in the case of Bemerton (Fig. 36) and the fluviatile strata on the cliff's near Southampton Water, described by Mr. Codrington, and those of Reculver, described by Professor Prestwich.
It must not, however, be supposed that the rivers in any case occupied the whole of the valley at one time. The swinging of the current from one side to the other, ​and the accumulation of shingle banks and of silt on the inner side of the curves, will satisfactorily account for the manner in which the deposits are distributed. The river would visit each part of the valley in succession, leaving behind its débris at the levels which it successively occupied.
The Reindeer-ford at Windsor.
The discovery of numerous fossil bones, teeth, and antlers in a bed of gravel by Captain Luard, R.E., in digging the foundations for the new cavalry barracks at Windsor, in 1867, afifords us the means of forming a striking picture of the valley of the Thames in the late Pleistocene age. On visiting the spot with him, I found that more than one half of the remains belonged to the reindeer, the rest to bisons, horses, wolves, and bears. They had evidently been swept down by the current from some point higher up the stream. In illustration of this accumulation a parallel case may be quoted from the observations of Admiral Von Wrangel, in Siberia. "The migrating body of reindeer," he writes, "consists of many thousands, and though they are divided into herds of two or three hundred each, yet the herds keep so near together, as to form only one immense mass, which is sometimes from fifty to a hundred wersts, or thirty to sixty miles, in breadth. They always follow the same route, and in crossing the river Aniuj, near Plobischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley leads down to a stream on one side, and a flat sandy shore facilitates their landing on another. As each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more closely together, and the largest and strongest takes the ​lead. He advances, closely followed by a few of the others, with head erect, and apparently intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied himself he enters the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is covered with them." Wolves, bears, and foxes hang upon the flanks and rear of these great migratory bodies, and prey upon the stragglers; and invariably many casualties occur at the fords, where the weak or wounded animal is swept away by the current. From these facts we may infer that a Palæolithic hunter, standing on one of the hills commanding a view of the district above Windsor in the winter time, would have seen vast herds of reindeer crossing the stream, and in the summer herds of horses and bisons availing themselves of the same fords, with wolves and bears in their train. We shall see, in the next chapter, that reindeer and bisons occupied the same districts of Derbyshire in different seasons of the year; and we may therefore conclude that the same thing happened in the valley of the Thames.
In other fluviatile deposits in the Thames valley the reindeer has been found in considerable abundance—at Kew, for example, in association with the bison, and in London with the lion, Irish elk, bison, urus, horse, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, and hippopotamus.
Palæolithic Implements in the Valley of the Thames.
The presence of man at this time in the valley of the Thames is proved by a series of discoveries dating from ​
Fig. 33.—Flint River-drift Implement, Gray's Inn Lane, 1/1.
​the close of the seventeenth century down to the present. A roughly-chipped pointed implement of flint was dug up about the year 1690, in association with the remains of an elephant, in the gravel at Gray's Inn Lane, and after being preserved for more than 150 years in the Sloane Collection and in the British Museum, was ultimately recognised by Mr. Franks as identical with those which were discovered in the river gravels of Amiens and Abbeville during the second quarter of the present century. Its shape is very well shown in the accompanying figure, borrowed from the work of Mr. John Evans, D.C.L.
Similar implements, together with triangular flint flakes of the type Fig. 27, and rounded scrapers for the preparation of skins, in form like that of the preceding figure, but with their ends rounded, are described by General Lane Fox from the gravel of Acton Church, on the north side of the Thames, in association with the mammoth, and under conditions shown in the following section (Fig. 34).
The implements occur very generally here as elsewhere at the bottom of the gravels on the London Clay, and vary in size according to the size of the surrounding flints, from which it may be inferred that either they were made of materials on the spot where they are found, or, as is more probable, that they have been deposited by water by which they have been sorted in the same manner as the gravels in which they are imbedded. A ​trunk of a tree, and the rhizome of a fern found along with them, have been identified by Mr. Carruthers as a pine (probably the Scotch fir), and one of our indigenous ferns, either the male fern or the osmund royal.
Fig. 34.—High Terrace Gravel, Lorne Terrace, Myrtle Road, Acton.
In the "Mid Terrace Gravel" at Brown's orchard, at a distance of about one and a half miles from the above locality, many fossil animals have been determined by Professor Busk, consisting of the small-nosed rhinoceros, horse, hippopotamus, bison, Brown's fallow-deer, stag, reindeer, grisly bear, and mammoth, on a layer of gravel resting on the London Clay (Fig. 35). No Palæolithic implements have been discovered in the gravels at this level; but they have been obtained out of the bed of the Thames at Battersea and Hammersmith, so that man is proved to have been dwelling in the neighbourhood of London, while the gravels were being accumulated high above the Thames, as well as while they were being formed at and below its present level. It may therefore ​be inferred that he was a contemporary of these animals which frequented the valley of the Thames in the intermediate period. This view is strengthened by the parallel case offered by the deposits in the valley of the Wily, near Salisbury.
Fig. 35.—Mid-Terrace Gravel, Brown's Orchard, Acton Green.
River-drift Man in the Neighbourhood of Salisbury.
Fig. 36.—Late Pleistocene Strata at Fisherton.
a = Gravel with implements. b = Brick-earths with implements and mammals. c = Alluvium. d = Gravel.
The fluviatile gravels near Salisbury have furnished implements of the same kind as those of the valley of the Thames in several places, among which those at Bemerton and Fisherton are the most important. At Bemerton, about twenty implements have been obtained in a bed of flint gravel, a, ranging as high as 100 feet above the River Wily (Fig. 36), and some of these have lost their sharpness of outline from having been rolled in the river, when it flowed at a higher level than the stratum in which they are imbedded, now forming the summit of the hill. It contained no fossil remains. In the stratum, however, on the slope of the valley at Fisherton, b, dipping ​down beneath the alluvium of the river, many species of mammalia have been discovered along with Palæolithic implements, proving that the hunter of those times would not be likely to suffer from want of game in Wiltshire. In the spring, summer, and autumn, there Were stags, bisons, uri, horses, pouched marmots, woolly rhinoceroses, and mammoths, and in the depth of winter, lemmings, reindeer, and musk sheep. Wild boars were in the woodlands, and hares in the glades. The hunter had, however, formidable beasts of prey, the lion and the spotted hyæna, as his competitors in the chase. In the spring time Fisherton was a nesting-place for the wild goose, and the heavy floods, rushing down the valley of the Wily at the break up of winter, occasionally surprised the marmots before they awoke from their winter's sleep, and sometimes deposited their bodies in the sediment at the bottom of the river.
The implements in both these localities are oval, pointed, and pear-shaped (see Figs. 33, 37), as well as of the simple flake-like form, the whole group being the same as that of the valley of the Thames.
Similar traces of man living under similar conditions have been met with in the river-deposits over the greater part of northern and eastern England, from Chard and Axminster on the west, to the Straits of Dover on the east, and from the Bristol Channel as far north as Cambridge. They are conspicuous by their absence from the gravels north-west of a line passing through the midland counties from Bristol to the Wash.
Social Condition of the River-drift Man.
The Palæolithic implements in the late Pleistocene river-beds are rude and simple. They consist of the flake, the chopper or pebble roughly chipped to an edge on one side, the hâche, or oval pointed implement intended for use without a handle (Figs. 33, 37, 39), an oval or rounded form with a cutting edge all round, which may have been used in a handle, a scraper for preparing skins, and pointed flints used for boring. These are the principal implements in the late Pleistocene river- deposits, and although they imply that their possessors were savages like the native Australians, they show a considerable advance on the simple flake left behind as the only trace of man of the mid Pleistocene age. In this stage of culture man lived by hunting, and had not yet learned to till the ground, or to seek the materials out of which his implements were made by mining. He merely fashioned the stones which happened to be within his reach—flint, quartzite or chert—in the shallows of the rivers, as they were wanted, throwing them away after they had been used. In this manner the large numbers which have been met with in certain spots, such as Brandon in Suffolk, and Thetford, may be accounted for. Man at this time appears before us as a nomad hunter, poorly equipped for the struggle of life, without knowledge of metals, and ignorant of the art of grinding his stone tools to a sharp edge.
Range of River-drift Man on the Continent.
The researches of Boucher de Perthes and Rigollot in the fluviatile strata of the valley of the Somme at ​Amiens and Abbeville, in the second quarter of the present century, prove that man lived in northern France surrounded by the same group of animals as in Britain. The identity in form of the implements, as pointed out by Mr. Evans and Mr. Flower, leaves no room for doubting that his culture also was of the same low order in Britain and in northern France. The discoveries of similar implements during the last twenty years have extended his range as far south as the deposits of the valley of the Garonne near Toulouse. We may therefore picture him as following the animals in their migrations, now retiring as far south as the Pyrenees, and now pushing as far north as the latitude of Peterborough. He must have found game in great abundance in the well-watered lowlands and round the numerous lakes, now covered by the North Sea and the English and Irish Channels.
The hunter has also left traces of his presence in Spain, in "a wedge-shaped implement unlike the ordinary European types, but similar to one of the Madras forms" (Evans), in the gravels of the Manzanares near Madrid, along with remains ascribed by Professor Lartet to the African elephant. In Italy an ovate implement of the ordinary form has been discovered near Gabbiano in the Abruzzo; and in Greece similar implements are said to have been obtained from beds of sand near Megalopolis, with bones of the great pachyderms.
River-drift Man in Africa, Palestine, and India.
Fig. 37.—Quartzite Hâche, Narbadá, 1/1.
The Palæolithic hunter of the River-drift has also left traces of his presence in Africa, at Ousidan near Tlemçen, Oran, where implements of the type of St. Acheul (see Fig. 37), made of limestone and gritstone, have been ​discovered by Dr. Bleicher in a rock-shelter. He is proved to have lived in Palestine by the discovery, by the Abbé Richard, of a flint implement of the ordinary river-bed type on the surface of a stratum of gravel between Mount Tabor and the Lake of Tiberias. He is also proved by the researches of Messrs. Bruce-Foote, King, Medlicott, and Ball, to have wandered over the Indian peninsula from Madras as far north as the valley of the Narbadá, leaving behind in the gravels and brick-earths the same traces of his existence as in Europe.
He is further shown by the discovery of a quartzite implement. Fig. 37, by Mr. Hacket, in the fluviatile strata on the left bank of the Narbadá, near the valley of Bhutrá, to have lived in northern India side by side with wild beasts now extinct, two kinds of elephant (E. namadicus and E. stegodon insignis), two species of hippopotamus, one (H. palæindicus) with four incisor teeth in front of the jaws as in the African, and a second (Hexaprotodon) with six incisors, and a large ox (Bos palæindicus). With these were associated the remains of a buffalo (Bubalus namadicus), identical with the wild arnee the ancestor of the Indian domestic breeds, as well as those of the gavial or long-snouted crocodile of the Ganges. Deer, bears, and antelopes were also represented. From this imperfect list it is plain that at this time the fauna of northern India was ​related to the present fauna, just as the European fauna of the late Pleistocene is related to that now alive in Europe. In both regions there was a similar mixture of extinct and living forms; from both the genus hippopotamus has disappeared in the lapse of time, and in both man forms the central figure. Mr. Medlicott's conclusion, therefore, may be accepted, that the fauna of the Narbadá belongs to the late Pleistocene age in India.
Human Skeletons in River-deposits.
The bones of the River-drift man are, as might be expected from the small size of human bones and the rarity of the hunters as compared with the enormous numbers of the animals on which they lived, but very seldom met with in the river-deposits; and are so fragmentary as to give but little indication of his physique. Omitting those cases which are doubtful, the following examples may be quoted of the discovery of his remains. In 1867 a portion of a cranium was found at Eguisheim near Colmar by M. Faudel, along with the mammoth and other animals in the loam, proving that the Palæolithic hunter in the Upper Rhine possessed a skull of the long type (Dolichocephalic). In the following year at Clichy, in the valley of the Seine, a human skull and bones were obtained, by M. Eugene Bertrand, from a gravel-pit underneath undisturbed strata of loam, sand, and grave], at a depth of 5⋅45 mètres from the surface, ​along with the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, ox, and stag. The skull was long and with simple sutures, and the bones of the thigh and leg presented characters which are commonly met with in human skeletons of the Neolithic age, the linea aspera of the femur being enormously developed, and the tibia being flattened. Other fragments found in the same pit, at a depth of 4⋅20 mètres, by M. Reboux, are considered by Dr. Hamy to belong to a broad-headed race, but the fragment of a frontal bone and of a lower jaw, upon which this conclusion is founded, seem to me too imperfect to afford decided evidence as to the shape of the skull. A human parietal and occipital have been obtained by the same discoverer at a depth of 4 mètres, at Révolte, also in the valley of the Seine.
Human bones have also been met with in the valley of the Somme; those discovered by M. Emile Martin at Grenelle, along with flint implements and the mammoth, belong to a long-headed race with large brain, identical, according to Dr. Hamy, with those interred at Cro-Magnon, in the valley of the Vezère. The flint implements found at Grenelle are considered by M. de Mortillet to belong to the same stage of culture as those of the Cave-men of Moustier.
No human skeleton of undoubted Pleistocene age has as yet been discovered in river strata on the continent sufficiently perfect to allow us to form an idea of the physique of the River-drift men, and no human bones have as yet been recorded from the fluviatile deposits of Great Britain. The few fragments, however, which remain to us, prove that at this remote period man was present in Europe as man, and not as an ​intermediate form connecting the human race with the lower animals.
Relation of River-drift Man to the Glacial Phenomena.
The Palæolithic hunter of the mid and late Pleistocene river-deposits in Europe belongs, as we have already shown, to a fauna which arrived in Britain before the lowering of the temperature produced glaciers and icebergs in our country; he may therefore be viewed as being probably pre-glacial. When the temperature was lowest he probably retreated southwards, and returned northwards as it grew warmer, precisely in the same manner as the mammalia on which he depended for food. From these à priori considerations he may also be viewed as interglacial; but it must be remarked that the proof of this, brought forward by Mr. Skertchly from his discoveries at Brandon and elsewhere in Norfolk and Suffolk, is still under discussion, and that it is not established by any other discovery, unless the lower brick-earths of Crayford and Erith be considered pre- or inter-glacial. He was, however, in this country after the retreat of the ice and the disappearance of the icebergs from the area of south-eastern England, ​
Fig. 38.—Section through Valley of the Ouse. a. Alluvium. b. Gravel with implements and mammals. c. Boulder clay. d. Oxford clay. e. Oolite.
as is shown by Prestwich, Lyell, Evans, and others. In illustration of this, the observations made near Bedford by Mr. Wyatt may be quoted (Fig. 38). There flint implements occur in a series of fluviatile gravels in the valley of the Ouse, largely composed of materials derived from the destruction of the boulder-clay. This is the upper chalky boulder clay of Mr. Searles Wood, and out of this, as may be seen in the figure, the valley has been partly hollowed. Consequently the deposits within the valley, including the fluviatile gravels, are later than the boulder clay of the district. The same conclusion is indicated by the section at Hoxne, where fluviatile deposits with Palæolithic implements (Fig. 39) rest in a hollow of the clay, as pointed out by Prestwich and Lyell. In the Thames valley, also, and in the area to ​the north, the valley gravels are composed to a considerable extent of débris washed out of the boulder clays, and are therefore later; some of the Palæolithic implements are made of ice-borne quartzites. It may therefore be concluded that man was probably pre-glacial and glacial in Europe, but certainly post-glacial in the area north of the Thames.
Fig. 39.—Flint Hâche, Hoxne, 1/2.
​The section, Fig. 38, is further remarkable, for the remains found in it are proof that man was a contemporary of the hippopotamus and the straight-tusked elephant, as well as of the urus and the reindeer, in the valley of the Ouse.
General Conclusions as to the River-drift Man.
From the facts recorded in the preceding pages the reader will be able to gather that the River-drift man hunted the reindeer, and the other arctic animals, in southern England and in France, and that he was a contemporary of the African elephant in Spain, and possibly of the pigmy hippopotamus in Greece. It is also clear that he followed the chase over the Mediterranean area, where the only obstacles to his passage from Spain to Africa, from Calabria to Sicily, Malta, and Africa, or from the Peloponnese to Palestine, would be offered by the rivers and morasses (see Map, Fig. 24). It is impossible to doubt but that he wandered either from Palestine to India or India to Palestine. His implements throughout this wide region prove him to have been in the same low stage of culture, alike in the sombre forests of oak and pine in Britain, and when surrounded by the luxuriant vegetation of the Indian jungle. From this distribution over three continents it may be inferred that man was in this stage of culture for a very long period; for it would have been impossible for this culture to have been
​spread over such vast distances in a short space of time by wandering tribes.
Probably the centre from which these Palæolithic tribes swarmed off was the plateau of Central Asia, which in subsequent ages was the aboriginal home of the successive invaders both of Europe and India. We cannot refer them to any branch of the human race now alive, and they are as completely extinct among the peoples of India as among those of Europe. Their relation to the men who lived in the valley of the Thames in the mid Pleistocene age is doubtful.
The wide area occupied by this priscan population renders it very probable that it was not the same as that whose remains are chiefly met with in caverns in a limited area in Europe, and which can be identified with men now living on the earth, and whose implements are of a higher order. This question will be discussed in the following chapter, in which it will be seen that the River-drift men as well as the Cave-men used caverns for shelter in this country and in France, as is the universal custom among savages of the present day.
* ↑ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxxiv. p. 68.
* ↑ For further details relating to forest-bed and associated strata see Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 4th edit. p. 254. Prestwich, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1871, p. 462 et seq. Searles Wood, Palæont. Soc. xxv. Crag Mollusca. Introduction.
* ↑ Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 4th edit. p. 261.
* ↑ Congrès Internationale d'Anthropologie et Archéologie Préhistorique Stockholm, 1874, p. 80.
* ↑ Lartet, La Seine, par M. Belgrand, ii. p. 206. Gervais, Animaux Vertebrés Vivants et Fossiles, 4to, p. 80.
* ↑ Comptes Rendus, 8th June 1863. Lyell, Antiquity, 4th edit. 233 Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 2d edit. 410. Hamy, Paléontologie Humaine p. 89 et seq.
* ↑ Geol. Mag., 1872, p. 268.
* ↑ Messrs. Cheadle and Woodward, Proceed. West London Scientific Association, Sept. 1876, "Notes on Pleistocene Deposits at Crayford and Erith."
* ↑ Falconer, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., xiv. p. 83.
* ↑ Prestwich, Geol. Mag., i. 245.
* ↑ For full statement of this argument see Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., xxiii. p. 91.
* ↑ See Buckland, Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, 4to, p. 67. Busk, Quart. Geol. Soc. Journ., Lond., xxvi. p. 457.
* ↑ Grervais, Animaux Vertebrés, p. 78, Pl. 18. Lartet, Congr. Int. Préhist. Archéol., 8vo, Paris, p. 269.
* ↑ Heer, Primeval World of Switzerland, ii., Appendix 1, c. 12. Rütimeyer, Archiv für Anthropologie, Aug. 1875, p. 133; Ueber die Herkunft unserer Thierwelt, 4to, 1867, p. 52 et seq.
* ↑ This is an abstract of those published by Dawkins and Sanford, British Pleistocene Mammalia, Palæont. Soc, 1866, et seq.; Dawkins, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. vols, xviii. et seq.
* ↑ Cave-hunting, c. ix.
* ↑ Since my examination of them in 1868, they have been transferred to the British Museum, and have been catalogued by Mr. Davies. Geol. Mag., Decade II. vol. v. No. 3, 1878.
* ↑ Admiralty Charts, Stieler's Hand Atlas, Ramsay's Orographical Map of England and Wales.
* ↑ See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxxiv. p. 139.
* ↑ Letter to Author of llth Nov. 1878.
* ↑ Leith Adams, Trans. R. Irish Acad. xxvi. p. 187.
* ↑ Jamieson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xix. p. 258.
* ↑ Quart. Journ. Geol. Lond. xvii. 364; xxvi. 528 et seq.
* ↑ Siberia and Polar Sea, trans, by Major Sabine, 1840, 8vo, p. 190. These obviously exaggerated figures must be taken to represent the vast numbers of the animals.
* ↑ These implements are termed Palæolithic, in contradistinction to the polished ones of the newer stone age or the Neolithic.
* ↑ For details relating to these discoveries, see Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, p. 521.
* ↑ Quart. Geol. Journ. Lond. xxviii. p. 449.
* ↑ Flint implements have been obtained from many other beds of gravel in and about London, at Shacklewell, Lower Clapton, and in various other localities in Kent, Surrey, and Hertfordshire. In some cases, as in those of Canterbury, to which Mr. W. G. Smith has directed my attention, they have been rolled in the bed of the stream before they were deposited, and afterwards the bed of gravel in which they lay has been worked over again by the stream and re-deposited, each change being marked by new fractures and abrasions. A similar series of changes has taken place in the lowest deposits in Kent's Hole, described in the next chapter.
* ↑ See Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, p. 549, and Quart. Geol. Journ Lond. xx. 188. Stevens, Flint Chips, p. 47. The mammalia have been determined by Dr. Blackmore and Mr. Alston.
* ↑ Evans, Journ. Anlhrop. Inst., May 1878.
* ↑ Mr. Evans' masterly work on Ancient Stone Implements will give the reader the details as to the forms and distribution of the implements in Britain.
* ↑ See Evans, op. cit. p. 571; Revue Archéol. xv. 18. The tooth of the pigmy hippopotamus obtained by Dr. Rolleston, and said to have been found in a Greek tomb at Megalopolis, may have been collected from this spot, in which case that animal was a contemporary of man in that region.
* ↑ Matériaux, 1875, p. 193. Rev. Scient. 15th February 1875.
* ↑ Cave-hunting, 429.
* ↑ Quart. Geol. Journ. Lond. 1868, xxiv. p. 503. Proceed, R. Irish Acad., SS., vol. i. Pol. Lit. and Antiq. p. 389. Int. Congr. Prehist. Archeol., Norwich, vol. 1868.
* ↑ Records of Geological Survey of India, vi. No. 3, 1873, p. 50.
* ↑ Falconer, Palæontographical Memoirs, passim.
* ↑ For an account of the human remains mentioned in this paragraph, see Hamy, Paléontologie Humaine, 8vo, 1870, p. 210 et seq.; and Quatrefages and Hamy, Crania Ethnica, 4to, Parts I.-IV.
* ↑ On the necessary rarity of the hunter as compared with the game see Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 4th edit. p. 364 et seq.
* ↑ Cave-hunting, pp. 173-9.
* ↑ The Fenland, by H. S. Miller and S. B. J. Skertchly, 8vo, 1878, p. 546; also S. B. J. Skertchly, Mem. of Geol. Survey of Great Britain. The strata containing the implements are considered by Professors Hughes and Bonney not to be of clearly ascertained inter- or pre-glacial age. Mr. Skertchly's conclusions are accepted by Professor Ramsay and Mr. Whitaker, and put by the prudent caution of Mr. Evans "to a suspense account." I feel inclined to accept the evidence brought before the British Association at Sheffield in 1879, founded on the sections at High Lodge, Culford, Mildenhall, West Stow, and Broomhill, in favour of man having lived in East Anglia before the upper boulder clay had ceased to be deposited.
* ↑ Wyatt, Geologist, 1861, p. 242. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond, xviii. 113, xx. 183. Prestwich, op. cit. xvii. 362. Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 4th edit. p. 214 et seq.
* ↑ Dr. James Geikie's view (The Great Ice Age) that the Palæolithic river-strata are "interglacial," in the sense of belonging to a warm period intervening between two periods of extreme cold, is unsupported by any evidence except that of Brandon and the neighbourhood now under discussion. If that be allowed to pass unchallenged, it does not follow that the river strata containing similar remains in southern England and France are also "interglacial." It is probable that glaciers descended from the mountains of Scotland and of all the higher hills of Great Britain, then lifted up at least 600 feet above their present levels into the colder regions of the air, as well as from the Alps, Pyrenees, and hilly region of Auvergne, while the mammalia were living in the forests and prairies below; but there is no proof that these animals were ever driven away from the lower grounds in the south of England or in France by the development of ice or by the extreme severity of climate. The severity of the winters during the sojourn of Palæolithic man in the valleys of the Somme and the Seine, is, however, as Prestwich has pointed out, proved by the large blocks of stone brought down by the ice and embedded in the gravel.