MAN AS THE COTEMPORARY OF THE MAMMOTH 

 AND THE REINDEER IN MIDDLE EUROPE. 



Translated by C. A. Alexander for the Smithsonian Institution, from ^'Aus der Natur : 

 die ncucstcn Entdeckungcn auf dem Gcbicte dcr Naturwisscnschaftcn." Leip'ig, 1867. 



While the eyes of inquirers were tnnied towards the cast and followed with 

 interest the excavations in Assyria and Egypt, in the hope of finding there some- 

 thing conclusive regarding the earliest condition of our race, similar researches 

 in the drift deposits of France, Belgium, and England, in the silicious formations 

 of those countries and in the oldest pile-constructions of Switzerland, Gennany, 

 Hungary, and Italy, l)rought to light incontestable proof that man had already 

 obtained a lirm foothold in diti'erent parts of Europe, at a time which ascends far 

 beycuid our chroncdogy, and even lived cotemporaneously with the gigantic and 

 partly extinct animals of the post-tertiary period ; Avith the mammoth, the gigantic 

 deer, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the liear, the tiger, and hyena of the caves. 



It will be understood of itself, that tliese discoveries were at first received with 

 distrust, because they totally subverted all previous conceptions and could by no 

 means be reconciled to the received theories respecting the age of the human 

 race. Even Christol and Tournal, who, in 1828, made, in the south of France, 

 the first discovery of fossilized human remains, mixed with fragments of pottery 

 and the bones of extinct species of animals, ventured not to vindicate for this 

 significant fact its just value, so firmly fixed in public belief was the doctrine of 

 Cuvier that man had first made his appearance on the earth after the era of those 

 primitive species. In the same manner fared it with the discovery of the Belgian 

 explorer, Schmerling, who, in 1833, found, in some caverns near Liege, human 

 bones intermixed with rude implements of stone and the remains of extinct ani- 

 mals, such as the rhinoceros, the mammoth, &c. ; even the discoverer himself 

 suggesting that it was possible that these relics might have been floated thither 

 after the deimdation of their original places of deposit. It was, of course, a 

 striking circumstance that already a nuralier of rude implements of stone had 

 been found without the coincident occurrence of human remains; whence no par- 

 ticular significancy was attached to these when discovered, and man}-, without 

 troubling themselves with further investigation, were content to assign them to 

 a later date or to confound them with what they were pleased to call S2>0)is of 

 nature. 



Nevertheless attention had become more strongly excited, ^and similar dis- 

 coveries, especially since 1840, stimulated further inquiries. Communications to 

 this effect did not, indeed, at once receive a proper appreciation, but finally the 

 grounds of proof became so preponderant that all objections of the skeptical 

 were put to silence. Meanwhile the proofs have continued to accumulate, so 

 that at length there remain no grounds of denying that man was an inhabit- 

 ant of the earth at the same time with the gigantic animals of the quaternary 

 period. The discoveries of late years enable us even to follow the human race 

 through different phases of improvement during the prehistoric era. 



At the commencement of the quaternar\- period the aspect of Europe, as far 

 even as the latitude of Sicily, closely resembled that of the polar regions of to- 

 day. The entire continent was wrapped in a shrt>ud of snow; enormous glaciers 

 covered the whole of Iceland, Scotland, and Scandinavia. All the valleys in 



