The Peat Mosses of Denmark—Shell Mounds—Swiss Lacustrine Dwellings—Ancient Mounds in the Valley of the Mississippi—The Caves in the Valley of the Meuse—Dr. Schmerling—Human Skulls in the Cave of Engis—Explorations of Sir Charles Lyell in the Cave of Engihoul—Caverns of Brixham—Caves of Gower—the Sepulchral Grotto of Aurignac—Flint Implements discovered in the Valley of the Somme—Gray’s Inn Lane an ancient Hunting Ground for Mammoths.

Among the various researches of geologists, there are perhaps none of a more general interest than those which relate to the antiquity of the human race. We would gladly know whether those strata and caves which contain so many relics of the past afford us also some insight into the primitive condition of man—some indication of the times when he first appeared upon the stage of life. Within the last years many discoveries have been made which have thrown light upon the subject, and proved that, though man, geologically speaking, is of recent origin, and probably the youngest born of creation, his ancestry still stretches back at least as far as that remote period when the huge Mammoth ranged over the north, when the cavern bear and the cavern hyena tenanted the excavations of our limestone hills, and the uncouth form of the rhinoceros brushed through the dense primeval forests of our land. In the following pages I intend briefly to point out some of the most interesting of these discoveries.

The peat-mosses of Denmark, varying in depth from ten to thirty feet, show their enormous antiquity by the changes which have taken place in the vegetation of the land since the first periods of their growth. At their lowest levels lie thick prostrate trunks of the Scotch fir, which must once have grown on their margin, but which is not now, nor has ever been in historical times, a native of the Danish isles. At higher levels the pines disappear, and are supplanted by the sessile variety of the common oak, while still higher occurs the pedunculated variety of the same oak, now in its turn almost superseded by the common beech. It is impossible to calculate the number of ages needed to bring about these vast changes in the forest scenery of Denmark—a very moderate estimate carries them back seven thousand years—but at every depth in the peat, and under all these various trees, implements and other articles of human workmanship have been found, which show that, since the appearance of man, the fir and the oak have successively flourished and disappeared.

In addition to the peat-mosses, the Danish ‘shell-mounds’ throw some light on the prehistoric ages of that northern land. These mounds, or ‘refuse-heaps,’ consisting chiefly of thousands of cast-away shells of the oyster, cockle, and other molluscs of existing species, may be seen at certain points along the shores of nearly all the Danish islands. The shells are plentifully mixed up with the bones of various quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, which served as the food of the savages by whom the mounds were accumulated, while scattered all through them are rude implements of stone, horn, wood, and bone, with fragments of coarse pottery, mixed with charcoal and cinders, but never any implements of bronze or of iron. Similar refuse-heaps are found near the huts of many wild nations of the present day, as, for instance, near the miserable wigwams of the Fuegians, who live chiefly upon limpets.

The most striking proof that the Danish refuse-heaps are very old is derived from the character of their imbedded shells. These, indeed, belong entirely to living species, but the common eatable oyster is now unknown in the brackish waters of the Baltic, and the eatable mussels, cockles, and periwinkles, which in the refuse-heaps are as large as those which grow in the open sea, now only attain a third of their natural size. Hence we may confidently infer that in the days when the savage inhabitants of the Danish coasts accumulated these heaps, the ocean must have had freer access than now to the Baltic, and mixed its waters through broader channels with those of that inland sea.

As in the peat-bogs the implements and weapons found buried with the Scotch fir are all made of stone, whereas those coinciding with the oak epoch are made of bronze, we may farther conclude that the stone hatchets and knives of the refuse-heaps likewise belong to the same distant period when evergreen forests flourished in the Danish isles.

The ancient Swiss lacustrine dwellings, so frequently mentioned of late years, afford us another highly interesting glimpse into remote prehistoric ages. They seem first to have attracted attention during the dry season of 1853–4, when the lakes and rivers were unusually low, and when the inhabitants of Meilen on the Lake of Zurich resolved to raise the level of some ground, by throwing upon it the mud obtained by dredging in the adjoining shallow water. During these dredging operations they discovered a number of wooden piles deeply driven into the bed of the lake, and, among them, many stone instruments, fragments of rude pottery, fishing gear, and the bones of various animals; those which contained marrow being split open, in the same way as those found in the Danish shell-mounds.^[31]

The ruins thus unexpectedly brought to light were evidently those of a village of unknown date, and since then many other hill-dwellings (more than a hundred and fifty in all) have been detected near the borders of the Swiss lakes, at points where the depth of water does not exceed fifteen feet. Such aquatic sites were probably selected as places of safety, since they could be approached only by a narrow bridge or by boats, and the water would serve for protection alike against wild animals and human foes. The relative age of the pile-dwellings is clearly illustrated by the nature of the relics that lie scattered among their ruins. In some, only bronze utensils or ornaments are found; in others all the articles are of stone. The former, indicating an advance in civilisation, are evidently of a more recent age, but, even among the villages of the stone period, some are of later date than others, as they exhibit signs of an improved state of the arts. Thus we have here a long perspective into an unknown past, for even the bronze villages are probably of an age long antecedent to the Roman period. The oldest stone settlements are perhaps as old as the times of the Danish refuse-heaps; but even among their ruins, some domesticated animals occur, namely, the ox, sheep, goat, and dog, and the appearance of three cereals indicates that the population had already made some progress in the agricultural arts. Amber ornaments, which could only have found their way from the Baltic, as also hatchets and wedges of jade, of a kind not occurring in Switzerland or in the adjoining parts of Europe, and which some mineralogists would derive from the East, prove the existence of an active commercial intercourse, even at that early age, which the Swiss archÆologists and geologists carry back as far as 7,000 years.

In the basin of the Mississippi, and especially in the valley of the Ohio and its tributaries, many large mounds have been found, which have served in some cases for temples, in others for outlook or defence, and in others for sepulture. Some of these earthworks are on so grand a scale as to embrace areas of fifty or a hundred acres within a simple inclosure; and the solid contents of one mound are estimated at twenty millions of cubic feet, equal to about one-fourth of the bulk of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. From several of these repositories pottery and ornamental sculpture have been taken, as also weapons made of unpolished hornstone and various articles in silver and copper. An active commercial intercourse must have existed between the Ohio mound-builders and the natives of distant regions, as mica from the Alleghanies, sea-shells from the Gulf of Mexico, obsidian from the Mexican mountains, and implements made of native copper from Lake Superior, have been found among the buried articles.

The extraordinary number of the mounds implies a long period during which a settled agricultural population, considerably advanced in the industrial arts, occupied the fertile valleys or the alluvial plains in the basin of the Mississippi, covered, since then, with vast forests, and tenanted by wild hunters without any traditionary connexion with their more civilised predecessors. The epoch when this people flourished, or the adverse circumstances which swept them away, are all equally unknown; but the age and nature of the trees found growing on some of their earthworks afford at least some data for estimating the minimum of time which must have passed since the mounds were abandoned.

Trunks, displaying eight hundred rings of annual growth, have been cut down from them, and several generations of trees must have lived and died before the mounds could have been overspread with that variety of species which they supported when the white man first set foot in the valley of the Ohio. In a memoir on this subject, General Harrison, who was skilled in woodcraft, observes that ‘beyond all doubt no trees were allowed to grow so long as the earthworks were in use; and when they were forsaken, the ground, like all newly cleared ground in Ohio, would for a time be monopolised by one or two species of tree, such as the yellow locust and the black or white walnut. When the individuals which were the first to get possession of the ground had died out one after the other, they would in many cases, instead of being replaced by the same species, be succeeded (by virtue of the law which makes a rotation of crops profitable in agriculture) by other kinds, till at last, after a great number of centuries (several thousand years, perhaps), that remarkable diversity of species characteristic of North America, and far exceeding what is seen in European forests, would be established.’

In all the cases hitherto mentioned, the remains or relics of prehistoric man, however remote a date we may assign to them, have been found associated with fossil shells and mammalia of living species. In the instances I am now about to relate, we advance a step further back, and find man the contemporary either of extinct mammalia or such as could now no longer exist in the lands where once they throve. As the mere mention of the numerous caves in Belgium, England, France, and Germany, in which human bones or articles of human workmanship have been found embedded along with the fossil remains of extinct animals, would tire the reader’s patience, I select from the number a few which have afforded the most convincing proofs of the antiquity of man. The credit of having given the first impulse to these fruitful investigations is due to the late Dr. Schmerling, of LiÈge, who, with untiring zeal, devoted several years of his life to the exploring of the ossiferous caverns which border the valley of the Meuse and its tributaries. To gain access to many of the caves was in itself no easy task, as their openings could be reached only by a rope tied to a tree; and when we consider that, after these arduous preliminaries, Dr. Schmerling had frequently to creep on all fours through contracted passages leading to larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week, and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through a stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove, piece by piece, the underlying bone breccia nearly as hard, and that while thus directing their labours he stood for hours with his feet in the mud, and with water dripping from the roof on his head, in order to mark the position and guard against the loss of each single bone which they brought to light, we can scarcely praise too highly his rare devotion to the cause of science.

Among these caverns thus laboriously explored, that of Engis was found to contain the remains of at least three human beings deeply buried under a thick floor of stalagmite. The skull of one of these, who may have been a beauty when the Meuse flowed at least fifty feet above its present channel, was embedded by the side of a mammoth’s tooth. Another skull was buried five feet deep in a breccia in which the tooth of a rhinoceros, several bones of a horse, and some of the reindeer, together with some ruminants, occurred. On the right bank of the Meuse, on the opposite side of the river to Engis, is the cavern of Engihoul, where likewise bones of extinct animals, mingled with those of man, were observed to abound; but with this difference, that whereas in the Engis cave there were several human crania and but very few other bones, in Engihoul there occurred numerous bones of the extremities belonging to at least three human beings, and only two small fragments of a cranium. None of the caves examined by Schmerling contained an example of an entire skeleton, and the bones were invariably so rolled and scattered as to preclude all idea of their having been intentionally buried on the spot. As no gnawed bones nor any coprolites were found, he inferred that the caverns of the province of LiÈge had not been the den of wild beasts, but that their organic and inorganic contents had been swept into them by streams communicating with the surface of the country. In 1860 Sir Charles Lyell, on a visit to LiÈge, determined still further to examine the Cave of Engihoul, into which Schmerling had delved in 1831, and engaged some workmen to break through the crust of stalagmite with the intention of searching for bones in the undisturbed earth beneath. Bones and teeth of the cave-bear were soon found, and, at the depth of two feet below the crust of stalagmite, three fragments of a human skull, and two perfect lower jaws with teeth, all associated with the bones of bears, large pachyderms and ruminants, and so precisely resembling these in colour and state of preservation as to leave no doubt that man was contemporary with the extinct animals.

Our English bone-caves have likewise afforded abundant proofs of the antiquity of our race. In 1858 a new series of caverns having been accidentally discovered near the sea at Brixham, by the roof of one of them being broken through in quarrying, the Royal Society resolved to have it scientifically and thoroughly examined. The united length of the galleries which were cleared out under the superintendence of experienced geologists amounted to several hundred feet. Their width never exceeded eight feet. They were sometimes filled up to the roof with mud, but occasionally there was a considerable space between the roof and floor. The numerous fossils discovered during the progress of the excavations were all numbered and labelled with reference to a journal in which the geological position of each specimen was recorded with scrupulous care.

As in many other bone-caverns, the underground passages and channels were generally found floored with a layer of stalagmite, varying in thickness from one to fifteen inches, and next below occurred loam or bone-earth from two to fifteen feet in thickness. In the latter were found remains of the mammoth, of the cave-bear, of the cave-lion, and other extinct mammalia. No human bones were obtained, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the bone-earth, and one of the most perfect lay at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface, and was covered with bone-earth of that thickness.

At one point in the overlying stalagmite a perfect reindeer’s horn was found sticking, and in another an entire humerus of the cave-bear—a convincing proof that both these animals must have lived after the flint tools were manufactured, or in other words that man in this district preceded the cave-bear. ‘A glance at the position of Windmill Hill, in which the caverns are situated, and a brief survey of the valleys which bound it on three sides, are enough to satisfy a geologist that the drainage and geographical features of this region have undergone great changes since the gravel and bone-earth were carried by streams into the subterranean cavities. Some worn pebbles of hematite, in particular, can only have come from their nearest parent rock at a period when the valleys immediately adjoining the caves were much shallower than they now are. The reddish loam in which the bones are embedded is such as may be seen on the surface of limestone in the neighbourhood, but the currents which were formerly charged with such mud must have run at a level seventy-eight feet above that of the stream now flowing in the same valley.’^[32]

In 1861, Colonel Wood found, in a newly discovered cave of the peninsula of Gower, in Glamorganshire, the remains of two species of rhinoceros, R. teichorhinus and R. hemitoechus, in an undisturbed deposit, in the lower part of which were some well-shaped flint knives, evidently of human workmanship. This is the first well-authenticated example of the occurrence of human implements in connexion with R. hemitoechus—the first proof that this extinct brute, elsewhere the usual companion of the mammoth, has been coeval with man.

In 1852, on the side of a hill near the small town of Aurignac in the South of France, a sepulchral grotto was discovered which, though unadorned and rude, is of the highest interest, as in point of antiquity it surpasses all other burial-places known, and leads us back to times long anterior to the oldest traditions of our race. In that year a labourer observed that rabbits, when hotly pursued by the sportsman, ran into a hole which they had burrowed in a talus of rubbish washed down from the hill above. Expecting no doubt to ‘drag some struggling savage into day’ he reached as far into the opening as the length of his arm, and drew out, to his surprise, one of the long bones of a human skeleton. His curiosity being excited he then began to dig a trench through the middle of the talus, and in a few hours found himself opposite a large heavy slab of rock, placed vertically against the entrance. Having removed this, he discovered on the other side of it an arched cavity almost filled with bones, among which were two entire skulls, which he recognised at once as human.

The good people of Aurignac, highly interested in the discovery, flocked to the cave, and as they probably expressed a wish to see the bones of what they supposed to be their forefathers enjoy a Christian burial, the mayor ordered these human relics to be removed from the lonely spot in which they had so long reposed in peace, and to be re-interred in the parish cemetery. But before this was done—having, as a medical man, a knowledge of anatomy, though, as it seems, a very imperfect idea of the ethnological value of the discovery—he ascertained that the bones must have formed parts of no less than seventeen skeletons of both sexes. Unfortunately, the skulls were injured in the transfer, and the interment was so negligently conducted that when, after the lapse of eight years, M. Lartet visited Aurignac, even the place could not be pointed out into which the skeletons had been thrown.

The eminent antiquary, however, resolved systematically to investigate the ground inside and outside the vault, and, having obtained the assistance of some intelligent workmen, made the following interesting discoveries, which amply rewarded him for his trouble. Outside the grotto, he found a layer of ashes and charcoal, about six inches thick, extending over an area of six or seven square yards, and going no further than the entrance of the cave, there being no cinders or charcoal in the interior. Among the ashes were fragments of sandstone, reddened by heat, which had once formed a hearth, not fewer than a hundred flint articles, and knives, projectiles, sling-stones, and chips. Here also lay scattered the bones of various animals, some belonging to species extinct for thousands of years in France, such as the mammoth, the Siberian rhinoceros, the reindeer, and the gigantic Irish deer; and among these bones those which had contained marrow were invariably split open, as if for its extraction, many of them being also burnt. The spongy parts, moreover, were wanting, having been eaten off and gnawed after they were broken—the work, according to M. Lartet, of hyenas, whose bones and coprolites were mixed with the cinders and dispersed through the overlying soil. These beasts of prey are supposed to have prowled about the spot, and fed on such relics of the funeral feasts as remained after the retreat of the human visitors.

In the cave itself, along with some detached human bones which had escaped removal to the churchyard, were also found the bones of animals and some rude works of art, flat pieces of shell pierced through the middle as if for being strung into a bracelet, and the carved tusk of a young boar, perforated lengthwise as if for suspension as an ornament. The bones of animals inside the vault differed in a remarkable manner from those of the exterior, as none of them were broken, gnawed, half-eaten, or burnt, like those which were found lying among the ashes on the other side of the great slab which formed the portal. They seemed also to have been clothed with their flesh when buried in the layer of loose soil strewed over the floor, as they were often observed to be in juxtaposition, and in one spot all the bones of the leg of an Ursus spelÆus were lying together uninjured. When we consider that it is still the custom of many savage tribes to bury with the bodies of the dead pieces of meat, such as the bear’s fat haunch, so that they may not lack food on their long journey to the land of spirits, we gain a most interesting glimpse into the life of prehistoric man, the contemporary of the reindeer, the cave-bear, and the mammoth in the South of France. Armed with flint weapons, he had established his supremacy over the wild beasts of the forest. Rude and ferocious as no doubt he was, he carefully preserved the remains of his friends and kinsfolk, and performed funeral feasts before the vaults in which their bodies were interred.

The lower parts of the Valley of the Somme, far above Amiens and below Abbeville, as far as the sea, are covered with a bed of peat, in some places more than thirty feet thick. Near the surface of these moor grounds Gallo-Roman remains have been found, and, still deeper, Celtic weapons of the stone period; but the thickness of the superincumbent vegetable matter is far inferior to that of the underlying peat, so that many thousands of years must necessarily have passed since the first growth of that swampy vegetation. But, however remote its age, it is still of later date than the adjoining or underlying alluvial deposits of clay, gravel, and sand, which cannot originally have ended abruptly as they do now, but must have once been continuous further towards the centre of the valley. A long time must necessarily have elapsed between their deposition and subsequent denudation, and the first growth of the peat. In the lowest, and consequently oldest, of these beds, there has been found also a mixture of freshwater and marine shells, bones of the primitive elephant and teichorhine rhinoceros, and a number of flint implements shaped by the hands of man. Thus we have here convincing proofs that a race of savages inhabited the Valley of the Somme long before it was scooped out to its present depth, and when as yet not a trace existed of the thick bed of peat which now covers its lower grounds, and required so many thousand years for its formation.

Similar flint implements, in connexion with the bones of extinct animals, have been disinterred from ancient drift formations in many parts of England—in Surrey, Middlesex, Kent, Bedfordshire, and Suffolk. In the British Museum there is, among others, a flint spear-headed weapon which was found with an elephant’s tooth near Gray’s Inn Lane in 1715.

When, according to the old myth, Evander led Æneas over the site of future Rome, they saw the cattle grazing in what was to be the Forum, and heard them bellowing among the future dwellings of the rich senators and knights,

The change thus pointed out by Virgil was far less than that exemplified by these few relics of a time when possibly no intervening sea separated Britain from the rest of the world.