CHAPTER XI 
PRE-MOUSTERIAN MAN IN FRANCE AND ITALY 
A JOURNEY of a little over one hundred miles from 
Galley Hill lands the traveller at the town of Abbeville, 
situated on the estuary of the Somme in the north-east 
of France. On the higher grounds of the northern 
suburbs of Abbeville, we find an exact counterpart of 
the terrace we have left at Galley Hill. Thanks to the 
pioneer labours of M. Commont,^ Professor at I'Ecole 
Normale of Amiens, a city on the Somme fully twenty 
miles above Abbeville, not only the exact structure of 
the loo-foot or 30-metre terrace — also named the middle 
terrace-^is known, but also the sequence of flint imple- 
ments contained in the various strata of this terrace. 
Indeed, it was M. Commont's discoveries in the terrace 
of the valley of the Somme which led to the inquiries 
at Swanscombe by Mr Reginald Smith and Mr Dewey. 
These gentlemen found in the 100-foot terrace of the 
Thames valley, as we have just seen, the same triple 
series of deposits, and the same cultures as M. Comment 
had previously discovered in the 30-metre terrace at 
Abbeville and at Amiens. Even in the most ancient 
Palaeolithic times, intercommunication between France 
and England must have been suflliciently advanced to 
allow a free interchange of culture. In fig. 66 is given 
M. Commont's section of the 100-foot terrace at Abbe- 
ville, as shown in the Carpentier gravel pit. The lowest 
' Les i^isements pah'olithiqiies d" Abbeville (Lille, 1910). See also 
L:Anthropoloi::;ie^ 1908, vol. xix. p. 527; ibid.^ 191 1, vol. xxii. p. 575. 
Compt. rend., 191 1, vol. cliii. p. 1256. 
194 
