IN THE PLIOCENE PERIOD. 423 



has been questioned, but Prof. Schwendener, who has recently 

 examined the specimens with great care, is decidedly of opi- 

 nion that it is of human workmanship. 



At the meeting in Spezzia of the " Societe" Italienne des 

 Sciences Naturelles," Prof. G. Piamorino exhibited some bones 

 of Pliocene Age, said to bear marks of knives. These speci- 

 mens are in the museum at Genoa, but I have not myself 

 seen them.* 



M. Capellini also has described certain bones supposed to 

 belong to the same geological period, which, in his opinion, 

 bear marks of flint knives. Mr. Evans, however, has suggested 

 that these marks may have been made by the teeth of fishes.-f- 



The existence of man during the period of the crag has 

 been supposed to be indicated by the fact that some of the 

 sharks' teeth, so abundant in these deposits, are perforated in 

 a manner ^which at first sight certainly resembles that in 

 which we find similar teeth pierced by savages at the present 

 clay. Mr. Charles worth, while carefully abstaining from the 

 expression of any opinion, exhibited several such specimens 

 at a recent meeting of the Anthropological Institute. It has, 

 however, I think, been shown that these perforations are pro- 

 bably the work of boring parasites.^: 



Some archseologists even consider that we have proof of the 

 presence of man in miocene times. Thus M. Bourgeois has 

 found in the calcaire de Beauce, near Pontlevoy, many flints 

 which have been subjected to the action of heat, and others 

 which he considers to show undoubted marks of human work- 

 manship. On the former point there is still some difference 

 of opinion, and the action of fire, though it points strongly to, 

 does not absolutely prove, the presence of man. These inte- 

 resting specimens were found in a stratum which contains 

 the remains of Acerotherium, an extinct animal allied to the 



* 1. c. vol. ii. p. 41. Hughes, Man in the Crag. Geol. 



t Congres,Int.d'Anth.l876 ; p.46. Mag. vol. ix. June, 1872. 



