EARLIEST EVIDENCES OF MAN IN FRANCE. 81 



AN AFTERNOON AT CHELLES AND THE EARLIEST 

 EVIDENCES OF HUMAN INDUSTRY IN FRANCE. 



By Professor A. S. PACKARD, LL.D., 



BROWN UNIVERSITY. 



THE earliest traces of human occupation in France and on the 

 European continent occur at Chelles, near Paris. We have said 

 the oldest on the continent, for apparently still older flint implements 

 occur in England. We refer to the so-called ' Eoliths/ or plateau imple- 

 ments, found by Harrison, Prestwich and others in southern England. 



The Chellean flint axes are still taken out of a bed of preglacial 

 gravel in the sand pits of Chelles resting directly on the Eocene Tertiary 

 clays. This deposit is overlaid by later paleolithic beds, containing 

 worked flints of the age of the earlier cave-dwellers of Le Moustier, in 

 the Dordogne, and called the Moustierian epoch. Directly above this 

 layer, just below the surface of the soil, occur polished stone axes of 

 the later or recent (Neolithic) Stone Age, and other remains of 

 human industry of the time of the Swiss lake-dwellers, while in the 

 swamps and loam are occasionally found Gallo-Roman antiquities, 

 such as Gallic coins, serpentine axes, and bronzes of the time of the 

 Antonines. 



Relics of the French who immediately succeeded the Romans in 

 France are also occasionally dug up. Clovis I. and Clovis II. built 

 villas here, and the site of one of them still preserves the name of 'the 

 royal palace/ The queens of these two Merovingian kings, Ste. Clotilde 

 and Ste. Bathilde, founded a monastery near the royal villa. 



Thus a single glance at the walls of the gravel pits near the town 

 shows the successive steps in the history of the region — the different 

 stages in Paleolithic times, as well as the Neolithic or recent Stone Age ; 

 so that here are revealed, as perhaps nowhere else so clearly, the overlap 

 of prehistoric on historic times. 



It is to be observed that the relics or traces of human occupation 

 also occur in geological strata or beds of definite age, not in caves of 

 somewhat uncertain age, and they are associated with the bones and 

 teeth of quadrupeds, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, deer, the 

 cave bear, etc., all of extinct species. 



Hence a visit to this classical locality on a serene though hot July 

 afternoon, in a most attractive region and in most delightful company, 

 was both interesting and memorable. 



The pleasant town of Chelles with its outlying villas, gardens and 



VOL. LXI. 6. 



