ANTIQUITY OF MAN Until the year 186o the majority of scientific men, relying on scriptural authority, believed that man's existence on earth cov ered a span of less than 6,000 years. Throughout the first six decades of the 19th century certain lines of enquiries kept bringing to their notice facts which could not be reconciled with orthodox beliefs. The first line of enquiry which brought unexpected facts to light was the systematic excavation of ancient graves and burial places. During the third and fourth decades, Danish anti quarians discovered that ancient graves could be arranged in the order of their antiquity; those which contained only weapons or implements of stone were of one period—the oldest; those, in which stone was replaced by bronze were of another and later period, and those in which iron had replaced bronze were of a third and more recent time. By 186o archaeologists had proved that the sequence of events, first discovered in Denmark, held true for graves in all parts of Europe and that prehistoric time could be divided into three periods or ages—the age of stone, the age of bronze and the age of iron. In this way archaeologists came to realize that authentic human history could be compiled by a care ful study of ancient burial places.
A second line of enquiry served to carry human history into a more remote past. This was the excavation of the materials which had accumulated in the floors of caves during prehistoric times. During the opening decades of the i9th century cave exploration was carried out with ardour in many parts of Europe; the fossil bones of many kinds of extinct animals were found, but as these were regarded as the wrack of the creation which pre ceded man's first appearance, it was deemed useless to search for traces of man's existence in the strata of such caves. In 1825 a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. J. MacEnery, while excavating Kents Cavern, Torquay, found, deep in the undisturbed floor, a stone weapon in a seam containing fossil bones of extinct animals. He rightly drew the inference that man had been the contemporary of these animals. MacEnery's discovery was rejected by the lead ing experts of the time. The same fate was meted out to Prof. Schmerling of Liege in 1833 when he announced the discovery of a human skull in the stplagmitic floor of a cave, "surrounded on all sides by the fossilized teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyena and bear." Then in 1858 came a discovery which arrested the attention of the most sceptical. Dr. Hugh Falconer and William Pengelly,
two most reliable investigators, excavated a cave at Brixham, near Torquay, under the aegis of two learned societies—the Royal and Geological Societies of London. Deep in the undisturbed cave earth, mingled with the bones of extinct animals, they found stone implements which must have been fashioned by human hands. Then in 1860 southern France yielded incontrovertible evidence of man's great antiquity ; the excavation of a cave near the village of Aurignac, Haute Garonne, by Edouard Lartet proved con clusively that man was the contemporary of extinct mammals, for in the floor of this cave were found the ashes of man's hearths, amidst which were mingled bones of extinct animals. These bones were charred, cut and artificially broken—the debris of long past feasts.
A third line of enquiry carried man's history into a still more remote period—one which in its older parts, preceded the age of caves. Beyond a doubt the man who opened up this new source of human history was Boucher de Perthes, an exciseman, stationed at Abbeville, on the estuary of the Somme. In 1832 he began to collect curiously fashioned stones which were found in gravel pits situated on the sides of the valley. These gravels and sands con tained the bones of extinct animals; Boucher de Perthes was convinced that the stones he collected were human weapons and implements and that therefore man had been living in northern France when extinct animals were alive and when gravel deposits were being laid down on the sides of the valley—clear evidence that man's antiquity was infinitely greater than was then thought. Although he began to publish his discoveries in 1847 it was not until i858 that their authenticity and importance was recog nized. In that year Dr. Hugh Falconer visited Abbeville, examined the evidence and was convinced that Boucher de Perthes had opened a new chapter in the prehistory of man. In 1859 Sir John Evans, after visiting the gravel pits of the Somme valley, returned to England and discovered that the gravel pits of the lower valley of the Thames contained the same kind of stone implements as Boucher de Perthes had found in those of the lower valley of the Somme. Thus in 1860 a certain group of geologists was convinced that man's antiquity was so great that a new system of chronology would have to be devised to cover the human period.