Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes (; 10 September 1788 – 5 August 1868), sometimes referred to as Boucher de Perthes ( ), was a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

archaeologist and antiquary notable for his discovery, in about 1830, of flint tools in the

gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...

s of the

Somme __NOTOC__ Somme or The Somme may refer to: Places *Somme (department), a department of France *Somme, Queensland, Australia *Canal de la Somme, a canal in France *Somme (river), a river in France Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Somme'' (book), a ...

valley.

Life

Born at

Rethel 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&n ...

, in the

Ardennes The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...

, 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 Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, 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 ''Douane'' or ''Douanes ''may refer to: *Customs, an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods into and out of a country *Custom house, traditionally a building housing the offices f ...

(customs office) at

Abbeville Abbeville (, vls, Abbekerke, pcd, Advile) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the chef-lieu of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of ...

, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Boucher de Perthes as an archaeologist

His leisure time was chiefly devoted to the study of what was afterwards called the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...

and

antediluvian The antediluvian (alternatively pre-diluvian or pre-flood) period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of man and the Genesis flood narrative in biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne. The narrative tak ...

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 Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantida ...

and

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct specie ...

in the gravels of Menchecourt. This was in 1846. In 1847 he commenced the issue of his monumental three volume work, , a work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

or early

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million year ...

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. In 1855 Dr

Marcel Jérôme Rigollot Dr Marcel-Jérôme Rigollot (30 September 1786 – 29 December 1854) was a nineteenth-century French doctor and antiquarian famous for his role in the identification of evidence of some of Europe's earliest inhabitants. Working near Amiens, he wa ...

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

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 Sir Joseph Prestwich, FRS (12 March 1812 – 23 June 1896) 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 vall ...

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.

Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known as the author of ''Principles of Geolo ...

not only confirmed the enormous geological time periods of the stratifications, but indicated that the

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

plateau of Picardy, France had once been connected to the chalk lands of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and that the

Strait of Dover The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...

Pas de Calais The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...

was the recent result of very long term complex

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

forces. 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 The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

. 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 Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

populations, while some authorities think they may be as old as one million years and therefore associated with ''

Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor ...

''.

Other works

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.

Aftermath

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 Centre 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.

Published writings

* 1830: ''Romances, Légendes et Ballades'' * 1832: ''Novels'' *''Chants Armoricains ou Souvenirs de Basse-Bretagne'' (Armorican songs, or, Souvenirs of Low-Brittany) *''Opinions de M Christophe, I. Sur la Liberté du Commerce.'' (On Free Trade) *''Opinions de M Christophe, II. Voyage Commercial et Philosophique.'' (Commercial and Philosophic Journey) *''Opinions de M Christophe, III. M. Christophe à la Préfecture.'' (M. Christophe at the Préfecture) *''Opinions de M Christophe, IV. Le Dernier Jour d'un Homme.'' (A Man's Last Day) * 1833: ''Satires, Contes et Chansonettes'' (Satires, Stories and Little Songs) * 1835: ''Petit Glossaire, Esquisses de Moeurs Administratives.'' (Little glossary, Examples of Bureaucratic manners) * 1841; 5 vols.: ''De La Création, Essai sur L'Origine et la Progression des Êtres'' (On Creation, An Essay on the Origin and Development of Entities) * 1848: ''Petites Solutions des Grands Mots'' (Little Solutions to Great Words). * 1847, 1857, 1864; 3 vols.: ''Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes'' (with 106 plates illustrating 2000 figures) (Celtic and pre-Flood Antiquities). * 1850-1851; 4 vols.: ''Hommes et Choses'' (Men and Things). * 1852: ''Sujets Dramatiques'' (Dramatic Subjects). * 1852: ''Emma ou Quelques Lettres du Femme'' (Emma, or Some Letters from a Woman). * 1855; 2 vols.: ''Voyage a Constantinople.'' (Journey to Constantinople) *''Voyage en Danemarck, en Suède, etc.'' (Journey in Denmark, Sweden, etc.). * 1859: ''Voyage en Espagne et en Algérie.'' (Journey in Spain and Algeria). * 1859: ''Voyage en Russe, en Lithuanie, en Pologne.'' (Journey in Russia, Lithuania and Poland).

References and external links

*Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes: Mémoire sur l'industrie (Vol 3) 186
Google books
* Belén Márquez Mora, "Jacques Boucher de Perthes", in ''

Encyclopedia of Anthropology The ''Encyclopedia of Anthropology'' is an encyclopedia of anthropology edited by H. James Birx of Canisius College and SUNY Geneseo. The encyclopedia, published in 2006 by SAGE Publications, is in five volumes, and contains over 1,200 articles ...

'' ed.

H. James Birx Harry James Birx (born June 1, 1941 in Canandaigua, New York), is an American anthropologist and a professor of Anthropology at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is a distinguished research scholar at the State University of New York at Ge ...

(2006, SAGE Publications; )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boucher De Crevecour De Perthes, Jacques 1788 births 1868 deaths People from Rethel French archaeologists Prehistorians