De Puydt & Lohest (1885-1886)

Maximin Lohest (1857-1926) and Julien Fraipont (1857-1910) are long-standing friends. Their friendship dates back to the beginning of their secondary studies which they did together at the Collège des Jésuites, Saint Gilles street, in Liège. “Being exactly the same age, living near each other, exchanging our reflections every day, we ended up adopting identical principles concerning our studies and the conduct of our lives. Only some travels abroad momentarily interrupted our daily meetings. Both in town and in the country we used to live in neighbouring houses. At the university, our assistant lecturer's, then lecturer's, then professor's laboratories were adjacent. We used to keep the same world, to have the same friends”³ (Lohest et al., 1925: 131-132). At the end of the last year of their high school in 1874, J. Fraipont and M. Lohest became “transformists” after some readings, conversations and discussions but especially after some lectures by Reverend Father Van Tricht about Darwin's theories relating to the evolution of species (Lohest et al., 1925: 137).

After their secondary school studies, M. Lohest first made a master in philosophy at the Université de Liège (ULg), then registered at the École des Mines. J. Fraipont for his part worked in his father's bank but his interest in zoological sciences drove him very soon to undertake a bachelor's degree (then a Ph.D. degree) in natural sciences, at the ULg under the supervision of Professor Edouard Van Beneden. Appointed assistant lecturer in 1881, J. Fraipont succeeded Gustave Dewalque in teaching palaeontology as early as 1884 and then became director of the ULg in 1909 (Lohest et al., 1925: 143). M. Lohest became assistant lecturer of G. Dewalque, who occupied the chair of geology. In 1893, he lectured on fuel and phosphate deposits, and this later became the lecture of applied geology. In 1897 he succeeded his master G. Dewalque and ended his career as head of the Geological Institute of the ULg (Fourmarier, 1953).

In approximately 1881 both men met Marcel De Puydt (1855-1940), who shared the same wish to clear up the problem of human antiquity (Lohest et al., 1925: 144). M. De Puydt was a lawyer and was head of the legal department of the city of Liège. His leisure time activity was the study of prehistoric archaeology and this explains his contribution to the development of the Curtius Museum in Liège (today called Grand Curtius), which has rich archaeological collections (Lohest et al., 1925: 145). In his youth, De Puydt had “looked for knapped flints in the neighbourhood of Namur and during his trips, had had the opportunity to visit Spy cave [...]. He was convinced that it had been inhabited by prehistoric humans”⁴ (Lohest et al., 1925: 145). He had known the existence of the cave since 1872, called it the Goyet cave, due to the closeness of the Goyet Mill (Figure 1), and had found plenty of bones and flints in it (Vercheval archives, copy of Les Amis de l'Homme de Spy). A few pieces of the De Puydt collection in the Grand Curtius Museum bear the mention Grotte de Goyet, CC Spy. M. De Puydt himself recounts the circumstances of his first contact with the site (De Puydt, 1939: 7): “In Namur, my excellent schoolmate at the Athénée Royal, Ernest Lemaire, from Moustier-sur-Sambre, had let me collect fossil teeth and knapped flints on the terrace of the cave”⁵. Further details are to be found in a letter by De Puydt published by J. Servais (1940: 9-10).

M. De Puydt visited the archaeological material recently discovered by A. Rucquoy. He informed M. Lohest about the richness of the deposits and assured him that the terrace was still unexplored. Then, in the spring of 1885, Lohest decided to start excavations at Spy (Lohest et al., 1925: 145; Vercheval archives, Report by M. De Puydt to J. Hamal-Nandrin on 15/02/1929). Count A. de Beauffort granted his authorization by letter on July 24, 1885, after M. De Puydt's visit to the castle of Mielmont (locality.of Onoz, a village next to Spy) (De Puydt, 1939: 3). They recruited Armand Orban, an old miner working at the Moha lime kilns (Lohest et al., 1925: 145) in order to do the research, which was entirely financed by M. De Puydt and M. Lohest. Professor G. Dewalque “according to whom the Quaternary was [...] the refuge for failed geologists”⁶ did not support the research, which he estimated of little interest (Lohest et al., 1925: 149).

The information related to the conditions of the excavations is scarce and sometimes contradictory. The field documents concerning the 1885 and 1886 excavations, the notes and sketches by M. De Puydt were destroyed by accident in 1886 (Vercheval archives, Report by M. De Puydt to J. Hamal-Nandrin on February 15, 1929: 4; De Puydt, 1939).

Consequently we have to trust the information published in the articles related to the discovery, some later publications by M. Lohest (Lohest et al., 1925), J. Fraipont (1895a,b) and M. De Puydt (1939), the publications on the later excavations (de Loë & Rahir, 1911; Rahir, 1928), various archives from the Lohest and De Puydt-Vercheval families, and the inventory of the archaeological material realized in 1920 by Jean Servais after the donation of the De Puydt collection to the Grand Curtius Museum.

The campaign of 1885

In August 1885, A. Orban was commissioned to explore the rocks fallen on the terrace from the cave (Lohest et al., 1925: 145). Among the finds there was a cranial fragment which constituted the first anthropological piece officially discovered at Spy (De Puydt & Lohest, 1886: 35) but we have lost trace of it today. It seems that part of the terrace blocks were eliminated by using gunpowder (Fraipont & Lohest, 1887: 666). They noted: “The opening of the cave, covered by an enormous terrace towards the inside portion, seems to be the only part never to have been explored; it is towards the inside portion of this terrace that we had a trench dug, about 3 metres long, 2 metres wide and 1.80 metre deep”⁷.

M. De Puydt and M. Lohest (1886: 35) recognized a “brown clay mixed with chalky blocks” (“une argile brune entremêlée de blocs calcaires”) in the lower part of which they found a “30 to 40 cm thick fauna-bearing level” (“un niveau ossifère, épais de trente à quarante centimètres”). Under this osseous level they found “either the bedrock or a light in colour, unstratified and very little compact sandy clay” (“soit le roc, soit une argile sableuse claire non stratifiée et très peu compacte”). The authors added in their publication that only the product of their excavations near the entrance of the cave is presented, which by this very statement also indicates the position of the trench (De Puydt & Lohest, 1886: 35). The traces indicated by A. de Loë & E. Rahir (1911) and E. Rahir (1928) are perhaps those of this first open-air trench.

The authors also gave details about their searching method: “We followed the osseous level all around our excavation; but under the terrace, the thickness of the fallen rocks sometimes forced us to do our work using wooden galleries”⁸ (De Puydt & Lohest, 1886: 35).

The trace of a gallery towards the right corridor of the cave is shown on the map of the cave published by Rahir (1928; Figure 5). This excavating practice was quite usual at the end of the 19th century and was also used for the excavation of La Naulette cave (Hulsonniaux-Houyet, prov. of Namur), Trou Al'Wesse cave (Petit-Modave, prov. of Liège) and in various prehistoric sites in the south-west of France (Toussaint & Pirson, 2006). That excavating conditions were hard is attested by an undated letter from De Puydt to Lohest, which is known to date back to 1885⁹: A. Orban was paid weekly, De Puydt and Lohest shared the costs and took turns going to the site, while Fraipont received and identified the discoveries but did not participate in the excavation costs. Orban dug galleries with the light of a candle, measured them and sketched them on paper. De Puydt added “I am scared of Orban's way of working, the galleries give me a fever, and I really do not need this”¹⁰ (undated letter from M. De Puydt to M. Lohest). In fact, A. Orban conducted a great part of the excavation by himself. Lohest and De Puydt came to control how the work was going on, but they were not present all the time. The interval between two visits was sometimes so long that Orban used to inform De Puydt about the progress of the work by post.

The results of these first excavations show the importance of the deposits (De Puydt & Lohest, 1886: 35; Lohest et al., 1925: 146). Several heaps of burnt earth and charcoal around flat Late Carboniferous sandstone, some of which still showing traces of fire, were dug up and interpreted by the discoverers as fire places. Few fragmentary faunal remains were dug up as well as various types of wrought objects (awls, pendants, beads,...) made of animal materials (bone, tooth, antler and ivory). The lithic industry numbers several thousands of artefacts mainly made of flint. Finally, there was also an indication of the presence of oolithic oligist and lignite.
 

The campaign of 1886

During the second campaign in 1886, the search went on in the trench which had been opened in 1885 and in mine galleries propped up with fresh cut wood. We suppose that the galleries dug by A. Orban in 1886 are those starting from the first trench at the junction of the cave and the terrace. However, because of the absence of field documents related to the excavation, we cannot know for sure. The map of the cave published by E. Rahir in 1928 (Figure 5) does not mention any galleries in the terrace, but de Loë and Rahir did not work in the zone explored by M. De Puydt and M. Lohest (Figure 6); they only excavated the lateral parts of the terrace, to the left and right of the zone, which had deliberately been left untouched by M. De Puydt and M. Lohest (“purposely and as control”, “à dessein et pour contrôle”; de Loë & Rahir, 1911: 43). The excavated earth, or part of it, was scattered down the steep slope between the terrace and the Orneau (Rutot, 1888: 200). Several refittings using the human fossils discovered by De Puydt and Lohest and those discovered in the 20th century in the deposits of the slope confirm this observation. It is hard to determine the proportion of the work that was done in the gallery and in the trench during 1886. The analysis, on picture (Figure 6), of the section made in the terrace by Camille Collard in 1909 shows the heterogeneity and the complexity of the sedimentary fillings along the zone excavated by De Puydt and Lohest in 1886 but conclusions cannot be made concerning the excavation method or methods used and their relative importance. In 1925, Lohest described hard and mostly underground excavating conditions. He justified this choice by financial reasons. He wrote: “Removing those fallen rocks containing practically no documents, would have been a huge and expensive work. Orban, recalling his job as a miner, suggested an underground method to exploit the osseous layers. It consisted in digging galleries and carefully shoring them up with wood in order to avoid any accident. It was an economical, but dangerous solution, due to the weak consistency of the ground”¹¹. He made a more detailed description of the miner's working method: “From the end of the gallery, Orban used to bring us a basket of earth extracted, as far as possible, at a well-defined level. We used to examine it in the open. If Orban signaled he had come across an interesting object, we would enter the gallery with the light of candles, extricate the sample and note its precise location”¹². The geologist adds: “But, as this kind of work required artificial lighting, we ran the risk of overlooking or destroying some interesting pieces. If we could have foreseen then the exceptional interest that our excavations were soon to present, we would have proceeded differently. But since we were not rich and were doing all these works entirely at our own expense, acting with thrift was important”¹³.

This “harsh” and remorseful description was made nearly forty years after the event. Nevertheless, it seems to be worth giving credit to, since it was confirmed by De Puydt (1939: 149). Other documents suggest the use of a trench in the 1886 excavations. The minutes describe a section 8 metres to the south of the cave entrance (Lohest & De Puydt, 1887: 229), an indication of the probable existence of a trench in the outer part of the terrace, which would have been approximately 11 m long.

For some authors, Orban may have changed his excavating method after the discovery of the first skeleton, resuming his work from the top of the terrace (Dewez, 1980: 38). However, no direct information attests to this change of strategy, which is not mentioned in any publication. Both the underground galleries and the trenches from the surface seem to have been used during the two campaigns of 1885 and 1886 and it is probable that the excavators alternated the two techniques depending on the ground.

The discovery of the two Neandertal skeletons

It is equally difficult to make a precise reconstruction of the chronology and conditions of discovery of the two Neandertal skeletons. Besides the first 1885 discovery, human bones were found in and after June 1886 (Fraipont & Lohest, 1886: 744, 1887: 598). Yet, M. Lohest (Lohest et al., 1925: 146) specifies: “In July 1886, during our excavations, we had collected a few debris of human bones, among others the anterior part of a calotte that very much looked like that of the Neandertal cranium, which we knew through drawings and casts”¹⁴. Both Neandertals were found during a short period extending between June (Spy no. 2, Fraipont & Lohest, 1887; Spy I, this study) and the first days of July (Spy no. 1, Fraipont & Lohest, 1887; Spy II, this study).

M. De Puydt and M. Lohest (1887) describe the findings as follows: “A first skeleton, unfortunately rather incomplete, was found 6 metres south of the cave entrance; another one, also quite incomplete, 8 metres south and a little west of the first one. The position of the first skeleton, which we shall call ‘Spy no. 2’, was hard to specify. The bones lay apart from their natural connections and the cranium was fractured into about 40 pieces”¹⁵.

A letter from A. Orban to M. De Puydt confirms the scattering of the bones: “At the level, nothing rare, I found some more, not greasy human bones. At this level, what I have and is good to my mind, is half a human jaw, as well as fragments from the primitive pot, the human limbs are scattered all over the terrace, we may suppose the skull is there too, [...] [...] I have moved earth like a slave, the place to do the section is ready, [...]”¹⁶ (Letter from Orban to De Puydt, Wednesday evening, undated, Dallemagne archives).

This letter, however, was written before the discovery of the skull, the first fragments of which were excavated early in July 1886 (Lohest et al., 1925: 147). The mentioned bones are probably those of Spy no. 2, the first to be discovered, and lacking anatomical connections. We do not know if this individual was found in a gallery or in a trench. Yet Orban also indicates in his letter that he is preparing the place in order to do a profile, but he does not specify where.

The second skeleton (Spy no. 1) was found in the first days of July. There are some more precise observations about its discovery: “The second skeleton, which we shall call ‘Spy no. 1’, seemed to be lying on its right side, with the hand leaning against its lower jaw. It was lying a little across the axis of the cave, with its head towards the east, its feet towards the west. In spite of a careful search many bones were not found. The skull was fractured. Several fractures were very old since fragments which were separated from their anatomical connections were rewelded by calcareous incrustations”¹⁷ (De Puydt & Lohest, 1887: 229).

The minutes

The minutes (Figure 7) were written on July 11, 1886 (or on July 2, see Cammaert, this volume: chapter IV), in the presence of M. Lohest, M. De Puydt, J. Fraipont and I. Braconier, a Modave landlord with whom De Puydt and Lohest had explored other caves (Lohest et al., 1925: 147). This event is essential in the step of the inventors: “Considering the importance of this discovery, we have taken very special care to have the authenticity of the human bones deposit certified by competent persons. The learned geology professor at the University of Liège, Mr G. Dewalque feeling sick, we went to Spy accompanied by Mr J. Fraipont and Mr Ivan Braconier and, in front of their very eyes, excavated some human bones still in situ, from under a red coloured breccia that was mainly made of ivory fragments, flints, etc…, that is to say under our second fauna-bearing level”¹⁸ (De Puydt & Lohest, 1887: 229-230). The geological section is plotted at the spot where Spy no. 1's cranium was found (Fraipont & Lohest, 1886: 766), which indicates the probable existence of a trench at that place of the terrace. Fraipont, who talks about “Max Lohest's unforgettable minutes” (“texte original en français”) confirms that human bones were extracted “[...] at the moment when I was removing the last bones with my own hands” (“[...] texte original en français”; Fraipont, 1895a: 37). Then they went to celebrate the event: “Once the minutes signed, we went for a lunch in an inn in Moustiers [sic], which was famous then for its excellent cuisine. De Puydt was radiant. Although a member of many temperance societies, on that day he was able to depart from his convictions”¹⁹ (Lohest et al., 1925: 148).

Lohest however specifies that the drawing up of the minutes took place with the utmost emergency: “Things were urgent at Spy. The trench in the cave where a few bones belonging to a second skeleton could still be distinguished, threatened to collapse imminently. So it was a matter of certifying that the bones were indeed in situ, with above them a layer of mammoth and rhinoceros, and that any hypothesis of later handling was to be excluded”²⁰ (Lohest et al., 1925: 147). Unfortunately it is impossible to know for sure if the “second” skeleton Lohest is talking about, is Spy no. 1, the second to be found at the place where the minutes were drawn up, or if he is talking about Spy no. 2, which had previously been found about 6 m away from the cave entrance. The same question arises for the “trench in the cave”: does it refer to the 1885 trench, dug at the cave entrance and widened during later excavations, or, in a more generic way, to a trench on the site?

From a stratigraphic point of view, the Neandertal bones “were lying 3.85 m deep under three layers of unhandled deposit” (“se trouvaient à 3^m,85 de profondeur sous trois couches de dépôt non remaniés”; Fraipont, 1891: 322). The description in the minutes locates them in the “third fauna-bearing level”, the bones lying under a layer of cemented sediments belonging to the C layer (Figure 8).

J. Fraipont and M. Lohest (1886: 692) state: “The skull of Spy no. 1 was almost immediately covered by waste of the second fauna-bearing level occupation”²¹.

The archaeological context of the skeletons is described as follows:  “Apart from a bone splinter presenting rough use-wear, the flints are the only remains of the industry collected at this third fauna-bearing level. They were generally made rather roughly. We found two points of the Moustiers [sic] type at the level of and next to the human bones. Similar points were found in the G layer”²² (Fraipont & Lohest, 1886: 769). M. De Puydt and M. Lohest (1887: 233-234) add: “a coarse flint probably coming from the gravel was particularly abundant on the level of the skeletons. They were however only knapping waste given that beside Spy no. 1, M. Fraipont extracted a black phtanite point, 65 mm, of the purest Mousterian type. This piece, fig. 9, as beautiful as most of the points from the second fauna-bearing level, is reproduced pl. V together with four specimens of the flints found close to the skeletons”²³. In reality, except this phtanite point, very similar to the points coming from the “second fauna-bearing level”, the rare archaeological pieces “associated” with the Neandertal skeletons are flint or luster sandstone flakes and flint flakes of the “pseudo-Levallois points” type (see Jungels et al., this volume: chapter IX).

J. Fraipont was entrusted with the study of the human and animal fossils (Fraipont & Lohest, 1886: 741). The official announcement of the discovery was made at the congress of Namur on August 15, 1886 (De Puydt & Lohest, 1887).

The collections were shared between M. Lohest and M. De Puydt. M. De Puydt took the stone artefacts, M. Lohest the human bones and the bone artefacts. The fauna remains were then entrusted to the collections of paleontology of the ULg. On June 4, 1920, in front of witnesses, M. Lohest amongst them, M. De Puydt bequeathed all his prehistoric collections, including the Spy lithic series, to the Prehistory Section of the Musée Archéologique Liégeois, or Musée Curtius (Notarial deed of June 4, 1920; Vercheval archives). A controversy about the ownership of the human bones arose a few years later (see Cammaert, this volume: chapter IV). The human bones and bone artefacts of Maximin Lohest's collection were ultimately donated to the Belgian State on October 19, 1994 (RBINS, I.G. 28169), except for two scapula fragments and a first sacral vertebra. These last three bones were listed by Ch. Fraipont in the register of the ULg in 1929, at the time of the court action which opposed the Belgian State to the Lohest family (1929-1934) (see Cammaert, this volume: chapter IV).

Due to the importance of the discoveries made at the Betche aux Rotches in 1885 and 1886, searches and excavations went on uninterrupted in the cave and on its terrace, in the slope deposits and the alluvial plain below until the early 1980s.