Moulin Quignon

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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.

By his collection of flints Boucher de Perthes had been the first to attempt to establish the existence of man in remote ages; but it had been objected that if the flints were indeed the work of man, human remains would have been found in association with them.

Considerable excitement therefore was created both in England and France by the "find" of bones at Moulin Quignon, and a commission of inquiry was appointed. The report was favourable to the genuineness of the relics, but latterly doubts have arisen as to whether they can be regarded as earlier than the Neolithic age.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. In 1863, J. Boucher de Perthes discovered an anatomically modern human jaw in the Moulin Quignon pit at Abbeville, France. He removed it from a layer of black sand and gravel that also contained stone implements of the Acheulean type. The black layer was 16.5 feet below the surface of the pit. The Acheulean sites at Abbeville are of the same age as the Holstein interglacial and would thus be about 330,000 years old.

Upon hearing of the discovery of the Abbeville jaw and tools, a group of distinguished British geologists visited Abbeville and were at first favorably impressed. Later, however, it was alleged that some of the stone implements in Boucher de Perthes's collection were forgeries foisted on him by workmen. The British scientists then began to doubt the authenticity of the jaw. Taking a tooth found with the jaw back to England, they cut it open and were surprised at how well preserved it appeared. This enhanced their doubt, but many physical anthropologists have noted that fossil teeth of great age are often well preserved.

Also, the Moulin Quignon jaw had a coloring "which was found to be superficial" and "was easily scrubbed from one of the portions of bone." Some took this to be an indication of forgery. But British anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith later said this feature of the jaw "does not invalidate its authenticity."

In May 1863, British geologists met with their French counterparts in Paris to decide the status of the jaw. The commission jointly declared in favor of the authenticity of the jaw, despite some reservations by two of the British members.

Thereafter, however, the British members continued to oppose the Moulin Quignon jaw and eventually won most scientists over to their side.

"French anthropologists," said Keith, "continued to believe in the authenticity of the jaw until between 1880 and 1890, when they ceased to include it in the list of discoveries of ancient man. At the present time opinion is almost unanimous in regarding the Moulin Quignon jaw as a worthless relic. We see that its relegation to oblivion begins when the belief became fixed that Neanderthal man represented a Pleistocene phase in the evolution of modern races. That opinion, we have seen, is no longer tenable."

In other words, scientists who believed the Neanderthals were the immediate ancestors of Homo sapiens could not accommodate the Moulin Quignon jaw because it would have meant that anatomically modern human beings were in existence before the Neanderthals. Today, the idea that the Neanderthals were the direct ancestors of the modern human type is out of vogue, but this in itself does not clear the way for acceptance of the Abbeville jaw, which if genuine, would be over 300,000 years old.

From the information we now have at our disposal, it is difficult to form a definite opinion about the authenticity of the Moulin Quignon jaw. Even if we accept that the jaw and the many flint implements found along with it were fakes, what does this tell us about the nature of paleoanthropological evidence? As we shall see, the Moulin Quignon jaw and tools, if they were forgeries, are not alone.

MOULIN QUIGNON UPDATE

We have recently uncovered new information that gives us a better impression of the Moulin Quignon jaw. In the aftermath of the Moulin Quignon debate, Boucher de Perthes continued to maintain that his discoveries were genuine. To help prove this, he conducted several more excavations at Moulin Quignon, under very strict controls and in the presence of trained scientific observers.

These excavations yielded many more anatomically modern human bones, bone fragments, and teeth. These discoveries, which received almost no attention in the English-speaking world, are significant demonstrations of a human presence in the Middle Pleistocene of Europe, over 300,000 years ago.

They also tend to strengthen the case for the authenticity of the original Moulin Quignon jaw.

These important discoveries, here mentioned only briefly, are the subject of a future book by Michael A. Cremo.