The evidence upon which these opinions were based had been gathered by such anthropologists as Schmerling, Boucher de Perthes and others, and it had to do chiefly with the finding of implements of human construction associated with the remains of extinct animals in the beds of caves, and with the recovery of similar antiquities from alluvial deposits the great age of which was demonstrated by their depth.
Later found to be fatally complacent, Boucher had relied on outdated data that neglected the dynamic forces of violent gusts.
The first actual find of a palaeolithic implement was that of a rudely fashioned flint in a sandbank at Menchecourt in 1841 by Boucher de Perthes.
His son, Barton Boucher (1794-1865), rector of Fonthill Bishops, Wiltshire, in 1856, was well known as the author of religious tracts, hymns and novels.
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.
