In the nineteenth century, knowledge about the evolution of both faunal and floral species progressed.
But the idea of human evolution wasn’t yet well accepted within the scientific community, not to mention the general public.
The discoveries made in the Spy Cave in 1886 played a key role in the acceptance of human evolution and thus in the
emergence of paleo-anthropology.
In 1886, Maximin Lohest and Marcel De Puydt excavated and discovered, for the first time in an archaeological context,
the bones of two adult Neandertals.
Until then, fossil discoveries had been fortuitous and were therefore poorly documented. In Spy, the bones were found
in levels that also contained extinct fauna such as mammoths and woolly rhinos. There was no more doubt ...
