13 to evolution over a long period of time. In April 1858 a group of leading British geologists and archaeologists visited the Somme to see the sites and finds that the French geologist Boucher de Perthes had been working on since 1828. Although Perthes had recognized the significance of his finds, his ideas had not found general acceptance because the highly respected palaeontologist Baron Cuvier had stated categorically that ' l'homme fossile n'existe pas' (' fossil humans do not exist'). Few were willing to speak in support of evidence undermining the ideas of such an eminent zoologist, who dominated the Academy of Sciences in Paris, but the meeting on the Somme undid this knot and endorsed Perthes's findings. Fossil humans must exist. Now the race was on to find human fossils, and to discover what the earliest people were like and when and how they lived. Art takes a part Having participated in the proving of Perthes's discoveries, Edouard Lartet realized he could find more evidence of ancient human activity and teamed up with Henry Christy, whom he had met at Abbeville. Together they excavated several important cave sites in the Dordogne, and in 1864 discovered an engraved drawing of a mammoth on a large piece of tusk at La Madeleine ( Fig. 5). This was positive proof that people had not just found and used fossil ivory but had certainly lived among the mammoths. In the same year Richard Owen, the eminent palaeontologist and 5 Drawing of a mammoth incised on ivory, found at La Madeleine, Dordogne, south- west France. Probably about 13,000 years old, L. 24.5 cm. Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, Paris. Engraving published in E. Lartet and H. Christy, Reliquiae Aquitanicae ( 1875), as fig. 2.

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