Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [181]
Verworn (1905, p. 8) reported: “It happened that in the course of my very first excavation at Puy de Boudieu I had the luck to come upon a place where I found a great number of flint objects, whose indisputable implemental nature immediately staggered me. I had not expected this. Only slowly could I accustom myself to the thought that I had in my hand the tools of a human being that had lived in Tertiary times. I raised all the objections of which I could think. I questioned the geological age of the site, I questioned the implemental nature of the specimens, until I reluctantly admitted that all possible objections were not sufficient to explain away the facts. In what follows, I shall attempt to show all this in detail. At the same time, if anyone doubts the facts as presented, then let him, as I did, go and see.”
Concerning de Mortillet’s proposal that the maker of the implements of Aurillac was a small apelike human precursor called anthropopithecus (later homosimius), Verworn (1905, p. 11) said: “It hardly seems necessary to mention that these speculations, insofar as they are based on the flint tools, are completely arbitrary.”
Describing his own discoveries at Aurillac, Verworn (1905, p. 16) wrote: “I especially noted at Puy de Boudieu, where I had the good fortune to come upon a very productive site, that the worked stones, sometimes 5, 10, or 15, would be grouped quite close to each other, separated only by a little tuff or clay, while for 50 to 80 centimeters [roughly 2 to 3 feet ] around there would be no such nests or only a few single specimens. As far as appearance goes, the unworked stones appeared to be quite rolled. The worked specimens showed little or no evidence of rolling.” Verworn (1905, p. 16) added: “at Puy de Boudieu I was almost exclusively excavating specimens with edges as sharp as when they had been made. All the quartz stones found among the flints are rolled until almost round.” The presence of sharp-edged flint objects amidst rolled and rounded pebbles of other kinds of rock at Puy de Boudieu signified that the flint objects had not been subjected to much movement since their deposition and that the flaking upon them was therefore of human rather than geological origin. The fact that the sharp-edged implemental flints were found in groups suggested the presence of workshop sites.
Summarizing the geological context of the discoveries, Verworn gave the following account. The basal layers are Oligocene freshwater and brackish sedimentary deposits containing beds of flint. Above these are Miocene layers of fluviatile sands, stones, and eroded chalk containing fossils of Dinotherium giganteum, Mastodon longirostris, Rhinoceros schleiermacheri, Hipparion gracile, etc., along with flint implements. Layers of basalt from volcanic eruptions cover these Late Miocene implement-bearing layers and in some cases go under them. Above the basalt and the Miocene layers, there are some Pliocene layers, with Elephas meridionalis and other Pliocene mammals. Volcanic layers from Pliocene eruptions cover these. There was no further volcanic action, and the cold periods of the Pleistocene followed. Paleolithic and Neolithic implements of the standard types are found in the upper terraces (Verworn 1905, p. 17). The basic volcanic sequence outlined by Verworn is still accepted today (Autran and Peterlongo 1980, pp. 107–112).
Verworn pointed out that those who disputed the Miocene age of the Cantal flints had not visited the sites. Verworn (1905, p. 19) stated: “In fact, in connection with the age of the flints there is, among the geologists who have actually visited the sites, not the slightest degree of reservation. They are all in agreement, and outside of Noetling and Keilhack, I am not aware of any other who have expressed doubt.”
Keilhack suggested that perhaps the volcanic eruptions, said by Verworn to have ended in the Pliocene, had in fact continued into