Précis de Paléontologie Humaine

Abstract

MHAMY's Palaeontology of Man, written with the view of bringing the results of recent discovery to bear on the antiquity of our species, is a most important contribution to the rapidly increasing literature of prehistoric archæology. It is intended to serve as an appendix to Sir C. Lyell's great work on the subject, and treats only of palæolithic man to the exclusion of the three newer prehistoric ages. M. Hamy has classified his materials with judgment and caution, and has collected into a small compass most of the statements on record of the existence of man in the geological past, with a running criticism, which sometimes admits, and at other times rejects, the testimony. He stands almost alone among his countrymen in attaching no importance to the reputed discovery of the famous Moulin Quignon jaw, and in allowing that the circumstances under which it was found were, to say the least, very equivocal. His book, in a word, is so good that I propose to draw attention to a few of the weak rather than the strong points. Among the latter, the first chapter, which treats of the employment of stone implements in the religious ceremonies of the ancients, and gives the history of “thunderbolts,” is perhaps that which especially demands the notice of the English reader.

Précis de Paléontologie Humaine.

Par le Docteur E. J. Hamy. 8vo. (Paris, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate.)