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XXYI. — Ok the Evidence or the Antiquity op Man, aefoeded 

 BY the Physical Steuctuke op the Somme Valley. By 

 John Lubbock, Esq., F.E.S. 



"While we have been straining our eyes to the East, and eagerly 

 watching excavations in Egypt and Assyria, suddenly a new light 

 has arisen in the midst of us ; and the oldest relics of man yet 

 discovered, have occurred, not among the ruins of Nineveh or 

 Heliopolis, not in the sandy plains of the Nile or the Euphrates, 

 but in the pleasant valleys of England and France, along the banks 

 of the Seine and the Somme, the Thames and the Waveney. 



So unexpected were these discoveries, so irreconcileable with even 

 the greatest antiquity then assigned to the human race, that they were 

 long regarded with neglect and suspicion. M. Boucher de Perthes 

 to whom we are primarily indebted for this great step in the history 

 of mankind, published his first work on the subject, " De I'industrie 

 primitive, on les arts et leur origine," in the year 1846. In this he 

 announced that he had found human implements in beds immistake- 

 ably belonging to the age of the drift. In his " Antiquites Celtiques 

 et Antediluviennes " (1847), he also gave numerous illustrations of 

 these stone weapons, but unfortunately the figures were so small and 

 rude, as scarcely to do justice to the originals. For seven years 

 M. Boucher de Perthes made few converts ; he was looked upon as 

 an enthusiast, almost as a madman. At length, in 1853, Dr. EigoUot, 

 till then sceptical, examined for himself the drift at the now cele- 

 brated St. Acheul, found several weapons, and believed. _ Still the 

 new creed met with but little favour ; prophets are proverbially with- 

 out honour in their own country, and M. Boucher de Perthes was no 

 exception to the rule. At last, however, the tide turned in his 

 favour. Dr. Falconer, passing through Abbe%alle, visited his col- 

 lection, and made known the result of his visit to Mr. Joseph 

 Prestmch, who, accompanied by Mr. John Evans, immediately pro- 

 ceeded to Abbeville and examined carefully not only the flint 

 weapons, but also the beds in which they were found. For such 

 an investigation our two countrymen were especially qualified: 

 Mr. Prestwich from his long examination and great knowledge of the 

 more recent strata ; and Mr. Evans as having devoted much study to 

 the stone implements belonging to what we must now consider as the 

 second, or at least the more recent, stone-period. On their return to 

 England Mr. Prestwich communicated the results of his visit to the 

 Eoyal Society,* (On the Occurrence of Flint Implements associated 



* Phil. Transiict. 1860. 



