Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes | |
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Born | |
Died | 5 August 1868 79) Abbeville, France | (aged
Nationality | French |
Known for | flint tools in the gravels of the Somme valley |
Scientific career | |
Fields | archaeology |
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes (French pronunciation: [ʒakbuʃed(ə)kʁɛvkœʁdəpɛʁt] ; 10 September 1788 – 5 August 1868), sometimes referred to as Boucher de Perthes ( British English: /ˌbuːʃeɪdəˈpɛərt/ BOO-shay də PAIRT [1] ), was a French archaeologist and antiquary notable for his discovery, in about 1830, of flint tools in the gravels of the Somme valley. [2]
Born at Rethel, in the Ardennes, he was the eldest son of Jules Armand Guillaume Boucher de Crèvecœur, botanist and customs officer, and of Etienne-Jeanne-Marie de Perthes (whose surname he was authorised by royal decree in 1818 to assume in addition to his father's). In 1802 he entered government employ as an officer of customs. His duties kept him for six years in Italy, but upon his returning in 1811 he found rapid promotion at home, and finally was appointed, in March 1825, to succeed his father as director of the douane (customs office) at Abbeville, where he remained for the rest of his life. [2]
His leisure time was chiefly devoted to the study of what was afterwards called the Stone Age and antediluvian man, as he expressed it. About the year 1830 he had found, in the gravels of the Somme valley, flints which in his opinion bore evidence of human handiwork; but not until many years afterwards did he make public the important discovery of a worked flint implement with remains of elephant and rhinoceros in the gravels of Menchecourt. This was in 1846. [2]
In 1847 he commenced the issue of his monumental three volume work, Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes, a work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the Pleistocene or early Quaternary period. His views met with little approval, partly because he had previously propounded theories regarding the antiquity of man without facts to support them, partly because the figures in his book were badly executed and they included drawings of flints which showed no clear sign of workmanship. [2]
In 1855 Dr Marcel Jérôme Rigollot of Amiens strongly advocated the authenticity of the flint implements; but it was not until 1858 that Hugh Falconer saw the collection at Abbeville and induced Sir Joseph Prestwich in the following year to visit the locality. Prestwich then definitely agreed that the flint implements were the work of man, and that they occurred in undisturbed ground in association with remains of extinct mammalia. [2]
Charles Lyell not only confirmed the enormous geological time periods of the stratifications, but indicated that the chalk plateau of Picardy, France had once been connected to the chalk lands of Kent, England and that the Strait of Dover or Pas de Calais was the recent result of very long term complex erosion forces.[ citation needed ]
In 1863 his discovery of a human jaw, together with worked flints, in a gravel-pit at Moulin-Quignon near Abbeville seemed to vindicate Boucher de Perthes entirely; but doubt was thrown on the antiquity of the human remains (owing to the possibility of interment), though not on the good faith of the discoverer, who was the same year made an officer of the Légion d'honneur. [2] However, the 'Moulin-Quigon jaw' was a hoax, planted by one of Boucher de Perthes' workers in response to an offer of a reward of 200 Francs for findings of human remains.
Although Boucher de Perthes was the first to establish that Europe had been populated by early man, he was not able to pinpoint the precise period, because the scientific frame of reference did not then exist. Today the hand axes of the Somme River district are widely accepted to be at least 500,000 years old and thus the product of Neanderthal populations, while some authorities think they may be as old as one million years and therefore associated with Homo erectus .
Boucher de Perthes displayed activity in many other directions. For more than thirty years he filled the presidential chair of the Société d'Emulation at Abbeville, to the publications of which he contributed articles on a wide range of subjects. He was the author of several tragedies, two books of fiction, several works of travel, and a number of books on economic and philanthropic questions. [2]
In 1954, the Museum Boucher de Perthes was opened in Abbeville, with collections covering a wide range of materials and periods.
In his novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Jules Verne makes reference to Boucher de Perthes after Professor Lindenbrock, Axel and, Hans discover "antediluvian" human heads on a beach near the center of the earth.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1838.
Sir Joseph Prestwich, FRS, FGS was a British geologist and businessman, known as an expert on the Tertiary Period and for having confirmed the findings of Boucher de Perthes of ancient flint tools in the Somme valley gravel beds.
Abbevillian is a term for the oldest lithic industry found in Europe, dated to between roughly 600,000 and 400,000 years ago.
Rethel is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture and third-most important city and economic center in the department. It is situated on the river Aisne, near the northern border of Champagne and 37 km from Reims.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1847.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1859.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1863.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1868.
Moulin Quignon, a quarry near Abbeville, France, celebrated for the discovery in 1863 by Boucher de Perthes of a human jawbone believed to be referable to the Quaternary period.
Dr Marcel-Jérôme Rigollot was a nineteenth-century French doctor and antiquarian famous for his role in the identification of evidence of some of Europe's earliest inhabitants.
Hangard is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. The commune is centered on Hangard village.
Crèvecœur or Creve Coeur may refer to:
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France.
The National Archaeological Museum is a major French archaeology museum, covering pre-historic times to the Merovingian period (450–750). It is housed in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the département of Yvelines, about 19 kilometres (12 mi) west of Paris.
Palaeoarchaeology is the archaeology of deep time. Paleoarchaeologists' studies focus on hominin fossils ranging from around 7,000,000 to 10,000 years ago, and human evolution and the ways in which humans have adapted to the environment in the past few million years.
Jacques Cambry was a Breton writer and expert in Celtic France. An early proponent of what came to be called Celtomania, he was the founder of the Celtic Academy, the forerunner of the Societé des Antiquaires de France. In addition, he is still honored as the "inventor" of the Oise département and praised for his contributions to the regional Breton identity as well as the national identity of post-Revolutionary France.
The discovery of human antiquity was a major achievement of science in the middle of the 19th century, and the foundation of scientific paleoanthropology. The antiquity of man, human antiquity, or in simpler language the age of the human race, are names given to the series of scientific debates it involved, which with modifications continue in the 21st century. These debates have clarified and given scientific evidence, from a number of disciplines, towards solving the basic question of dating the first human being.
François Poilly, or François de Poilly, was a French engraver.
Christophe-Paulin de La Poix, chevalier de Fréminville was a French Navy Commander, naturalist, archeologist and pioneer of transvestism.
1838 in philosophy