314 
ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 
erected during the latter part of the stone age and the bronze period. 
During the stone age the pile dwellings were spread over the whole 
country, but during the latter period, when bronze was used, they 
were confined to the lakes of "Western Switzerland, and still more 
recently, when iron was used for the manufacture of their implements, 
they were found only on the lakes of Bienne and Neuchatel. Far 
earlier than these remains are those discovered by M. Boucher de 
Perthes in the year 1846. He found human implements in beds 
of the drift age, a description of which he published in Antiquitse 
Celtiques et Antediluviennes, 1847. For several years M. Perthes 
received little attention, and by many was looked upon as a madman. 
It was not until Dr. Faulkner visited his collection at Abbeville, and 
made known the result of his visit to Dr. Prestwich and Dr. Evans, 
who immediately proceeded to Abbeville to verify for themselves the 
discovery of these flint implements, that the tide set in favour of M. 
Perthes' theories. After the results of these visits had been made 
known in the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society of this 
country, many other geologists, amongst whom were Sir Charles 
Lyell, visited the drifts of Amiens and Abbeville, and speedily came 
to the conclusion that the specimens were genuine. An examination 
of the collections in the Societ}^ of Antiquaries showed that many 
years previously specimens of similar implements had been found 
along with bones of extinct animals, at a gravel pit at Oxon, in Suffolk, 
and had been described in the Archaeologia in 1800. Numerous 
other localities speedil)" occurred in which the palaaolithic or oldest 
flint implements w^ere found, but it is doubtful whether any specimens 
of these implements have been found in this county, though the bones 
of the animals which are found associated in other localities with 
these old flints, the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and others, 
have been found in Yorkshire in abundance. Sir John Lubbock cites 
M. Lartet's opinion that the men, whose implements are found in 
the river gravels are not the oldest men of whom we have evidence, 
because man is found associated in caves with the great cave bear, 
(Ursus speleeus), which has not hitherto been authentically discovered 
in the river gravels and was probably extinct before the man of the 
river gravels existed. 
