Dr Marcel-Jérôme Rigollot (1786-1854) was a nineteenth century French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 doctor and antiquarian

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...

 famous for his role in the identification of evidence of some of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

's earliest inhabitants and his invention of the mustard plaster

Mustard plaster

A mustard plaster is a poultice of mustard seed powder spread inside a protective dressing and applied to the chest or abdomen to stimulate healing. In times past and present, the mixture was spread onto a cloth and applied to the chest or back. The mustard paste itself should never make contact...

.

Working near Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, he was initially critical of the claims of Jacques Boucher de Perthes

Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes

Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes , sometimes referred to as Boucher de Perthes, was a French archaeologist and antiquary notable for his discovery, in about 1830, of flint tools in the gravels of the Somme valley....

 who believed he had found artefacts

Artifact (archaeology)

An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...

 that dated back hundreds of thousands of years to what is now called the Lower Palaeolithic. In 1855 however he began to find examples of stone tools himself whilst studying the river gravel

Gravel

Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...

s of the Somme

Somme River

The Somme is a river in Picardy, northern France. The name Somme comes from a Celtic word meaning tranquility. The department Somme was named after this river....

 in an effort to disprove his opponents. The tools' position within the gravel attested to their age geologically and following visits to the site of Abbeville

Abbeville

Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...

 and Saint Acheul by the Palaeontologist Hugh Falconer

Hugh Falconer

Hugh Falconer MD FRS was a Scottish geologist, botanist, palaeontologist and paleoanthropologist. He studied the flora, fauna and geology of India, Assam and Burma, and was the first to suggest the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium...

 and the geologist Joseph Prestwich

Joseph Prestwich

Sir Joseph Prestwich FRS, 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 valley gravel beds....

the great age of the tools was accepted by the wider archaeological; community.