Cave Hunting / Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe

The Refuse-heap.

The first intimation of any prehistoric remains in that locality was afforded by a small box of bones forwarded to me by Mr. Darwin, in 1869; and this I was able to follow up, through the kind assistance of Mrs. Lloyd, the owner of the property on which they were found, from time to time, during 1869–70–71–2. The mountain limestone, which there forms hill and valley, consists of thick masses of hard rock, separated by soft beds of shale, and contains large quantities of producti, crinoids and corals. The strata dip to the south, at an angle of about 1 in 25, and form two parallel ridges, with abrupt faces to the north, and separated from each other by a narrow valley, passing east and west along the strike. The remains sent by Mr. Darwin were obtained from a space between two strata near the top of the northern ridge, whence the intervening softer material had been carried away by water. Its maximum height was 6 inches, and its width 20 feet or more; and it extended in a direction parallel to the bed of the rocks. The bones, which had evidently been washed in by the rain, and not carried in by any carnivora, belong to the following species:—

Canis familiaris—The Dog.
Canis vulpes—The Fox.
Meles taxus—The Badger.
Sus scrofa—The Pig.
Cervus capreolus—The Roe-deer.
Cervus elaphus—The Red-deer.
Capra hircus—The Goat.
Bos longifrons—The Celtic Short-horn.
Equus caballus—The Horse.
Arvicola amphibius—The Water-rat.
Lepus timidus—The Hare.
Lepus cuniculus—The Rabbit.
The Eagle.

Nearly all the bones were broken, and belonged to young animals. Those of the Celtic short-horn, of the sheep or goat, and of the young pig, were very abundant; while those of the roe and stag, hare and horse, were comparatively rare. The remains of the domestic dog were rather abundant, and the percentage of young puppies implies also that they, like the other animals, had been used for food. Possibly the hare may also have been eaten, but its remains were scarce, and belonged to adults. Some of the bones had been gnawed by dogs. The only reasonable cause that can be assigned for the accumulation of the remains of these animals is, that the locality was inhabited by men of pastoral habits, but yet to a certain extent dependent on the chase, and that the relics of their food were thrown out to form a refuse-heap. The latter had altogether disappeared from the surface of the ground, from the action of the rain and other atmospheric causes, while those portions of it which chanced to be washed into the narrow interspace between the strata were preserved, to mark the spot which it once occupied.

There was nothing in the deposit that fixes the date of its accumulation. It may have been of the stone, bronze, or iron age; but from the presence of the goat, short-horned ox, and dog, it certainly does not date so far back as the epoch of the reindeer, mammoth, rhinoceros, and cave-hyæna. The presence of the Celtic short-horn throws no light upon the antiquity, because for centuries after it had ceased to be the domestic breed in England it remained in Wales, and still lives in the small black Welsh cattle, that are lineal descendants of those which furnished beef to the Roman provincials in Britain.

The Sepulchral Caves.

While the refuse-heap was being explored, I chose a small depression (Fig. 36 A) in the precipitous side of the southern ridge, that formed a kind of rock shelter overlooking the valley, and that seemed to be a likely place for the abode of man, or of wild animals. On setting the men to work, in a few minutes we began to discover the remains of dog, marten-cat, fox, badger, goat, Celtic short-horn, roe-deer and stag, horse, and large birds. Mixed with these, as we proceeded, we began to find human bones, between and underneath large masses of rock, that were completely covered up with red silt and sand. As these were cleared away, we gradually realized that we were on the threshold of a sepulchral cave. In the small space then excavated, human remains, belonging to no fewer than five individuals, were found. Subsequently the work was carried on by Mrs. Lloyd, under the careful supervision of her agent Mr. Reid. The rock-shelter narrowed into a “tunnel cave,” that penetrated the rocks in a line parallel to the bedding, and, roughly speaking, at right angles to the valley, having a width varying from 3 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 6 inches, and a height from 3 feet 4 inches to 4 feet 6 inches.

The entrance was completely blocked up with red earth and loose stones, the latter, apparently, having been placed there by design (Figs. 36, 37). The inside of the cave was filled with red earth and sand to within about a foot of the roof. The remains were found, for the most part, on or near the top; but in some cases they were deep down. One human skull, for example, was found six inches only above the rocky floor. The human bones were associated with those of the animals of which a list has been given, and occurred in little confused heaps. One human femur was in a perpendicular position. The account of the continuation of the digging is given almost in the words of Mrs. Lloyd. On the second day, after an hour’s work, a human skull was found near the roof of the cave, resting on a femur; then eleven feet explored brought to light a large quantity of human bones, including nine femurs. The third and fourth days were devoted to clearing out the cave (Fig. 36–7 B) up to this point, and to excavating about four feet further in, or fifteen from the entrance. During the work two teeth of a horse were found, resting on the floor near the entrance, and nine more about ten feet within the cave; also a boar’s tusk of remarkable size, and close by a mussel and cockle-shell, and valve of Mya truncata, along with a quantity of human and other bones; including five skulls, more or less perfect, and many fragments. All these skulls were found between the tenth and fifteenth feet from the entrance. During the fifth and sixth days, the work was superintended by Mr. Reid, who entirely cleared the cave for about thirteen feet further: the first eight feet yielded a small quantity of human and other bones, including the perfect skull of a marten-cat and the incisor of a wild boar. The only implement found in the cave, a broken flint flake, occurred here, and a nearly perfect human skull, lying face downwards, with the pelvis adhering to one side. The last five feet furnished only two bones, both of the short-horned ox. The end of the cave was composed of unproductive grey clay. (Figs. 36–7 C.)

Small fragments of charcoal occurred throughout the cave, and a great many rounded pebbles from the boulder clay of the neighbourhood.

The human remains belong for the most part to very young or adolescent individuals, from the small infant to youths of twenty-one. Some, however, belong to men in the prime of life. All the teeth that had been used were ground perfectly flat. The skulls belong to that type which Professor Huxley terms the “river-bed skull.” Some of the tibiæ present the peculiar flattening parallel to the median line, which Professor Busk denotes by the term platycnemic, and some of the femora were traversed by a largely developed and prominent linea aspera; but these peculiarities were not seen on all the femora and tibiæ, and cannot therefore be considered characteristic of race, but most probably of sex. They were not presented by any of the younger bones.

All the human remains had undoubtedly been buried in the cave, since the bones were in the main perfect, or only broken by the large stones which had subsequently fallen from the roof. From the juxtaposition of one skull to a pelvis, and the vertical position of one of the femora, as well as the fact that the bones lay in confused heaps, it is clear that the corpses had been buried in the contracted posture, as is usually the case in neolithic interments. And since the area was insufficient for the accommodation of so many bodies at one time, it is certain that the cave had been used as a cemetery at different times. The stones blocking up the entrance were probably placed as a barrier against the inroads of wild beasts.

These remains are the first in this country which present the peculiar character of platycnemism, noticed by Professor Busk and Dr. Falconer in human remains in the caves of Gibraltar, and by Dr. Broca in some of those from the dolmens of France, and subsequently in the celebrated skeletons found in the cave of Cro-magnon. I have also observed the same peculiar flattening of the tibia in the only fragment of human bone obtained by Mr. Foote, in the Lateritic deposits of the eastern coast of Southern India, along with the stone implements figured in the Norwich Volume of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology (1868, p. 224).

The remains of the animals associated with the human bones belong to the same species as those mentioned above from the débris of a refuse-heap, and are in a similar broken and split condition. They may have been deposited at the same time as the human skeletons, but, from the fact that some of them are gnawed by dogs, it is most probable that they were accumulated while the cave was used as a dwelling. If the bodies were placed on an old floor of occupation, and afterwards disturbed by rabbits and badgers, the remains would be mingled together as they were found to be mingled. The contents had evidently been disturbed by the burrowing of all these animals.

Subsequently we discovered and explored no less than four other sepulchral caves, within a few hundred yards of the refuse-heap, in which the corpses had been buried in the same crouching posture. From one on the farm of Rhosdigre we obtained a perfect celt of polished greenstone which had never been used (Fig. 38), together with several flint flakes, and numerous fragments of pottery, rude, black inside, hand-made, and containing in their substance small fragments of limestone.

Similar potsherds are preserved in the Oxford Museum, from the superficial deposits of the caves of Gailenreuth and Kuhlock, and I have observed them also among the remains from Kent’s Hole. The celt was most probably, from its unworn condition, buried with the dead, and it stamps the neolithic age of the interments of the whole group.

Among the broken bones from this cave were the teeth of the brown bear, and the lower jaw of a wolf; and the fractured bones of the dog implied that that animal ministered to the appetite, as well as obeyed the commands, of the neolithic inhabitants. I have met with similar evidence of the use of dog’s flesh for food among the broken bones which Canon Greenwell obtained from the neolithic tumuli of the Yorkshire Wolds. On the other hand, the marks of the teeth of dogs, or wolves, on some of the human femora, implied that those animals made their way into this cave and feasted on the corpses.

The neolithic age of these interments is proved, not merely by the presence of the stone axe, or of the flint flakes, but by the burial in a contracted posture,97 and the fact that the skulls are identical with those obtained from chambered tombs in the south of England proved to be neolithic by Dr. Thurnam.

The number of skeletons of all ages, and of both sexes, buried in these caves was very considerable; and they had been placed on the old floor of occupation at successive times. In that of Rhosdigre the accumulation of charcoal, broken bones, and fragments of pottery below some of the human skeletons, proved that it had been used for a habitation before it was used for a burial-place. It is very probable that originally the head of a family, or a clan, or a tribe, was buried in his own cave-dwelling, and that it was afterwards used as a cemetery for his blood relations and followers.

The Neolithic Caves in the neighbourhood of Cefn, near St. Asaph.

The same class of remains, referable to the neolithic age, have been met with in the caves in the limestone cliffs of the beautiful valleys of the Clwyd and the Elwy, near St. Asaph. In the collection of fossil bones in the possession of Mrs. Williams Wynn, discovered in 1833, in a cave at Cefn, by Mr. Edward Lloyd,98 is a human skull and lower jaw, along with platycnemic limb-bones. They were found mingled with the bones of goat, pig, fox, and badger, and cut antlers of the red-deer, inside the lower entrance of the cave, in which the extinct pleistocene animals were found in the valley of the Elwy. Four flint flakes also were discovered along with them.

The skull in its general features strongly resembles those found in the group of caves at Perthi-Chwareu, and presents a cephalic index99 of ·770, which comes within the limits of the extreme forms from that locality. Professor Busk, however, as will be seen in his account of this skull, because of its low altitudinal index—·702, as compared with ·710 of the lowest Perthi-Chwareu skull—is inclined to view it as of a different type. The conditions, on the other hand, under which it was found appear to me to be circumstantial evidence that the interment is of the same relative age as that of Perthi-Chwareu. Both were in caves: in both the remains of the same domestic and wild animals were found in the same fragmentary condition. Flint flakes also occurred in both; and what is more important, the platycnemic limb-bones in both imply a somewhat similar mode of life in the people to whom they belonged. This body of evidence, in favour of the interments having been made by the same race of men who lived some time in Denbighshire, seems to me of greater weight than that to the contrary afforded by the difference of ·008 in the altitudinal indices of the skulls. After a comparison of the carefully prepared measurements of the crania published in the “Crania Britannica” with those published elsewhere, I cannot resist the conviction, that if similar modes of life and of burial in Britain imply an identity of race, cranial variation within the limits of that race is by no means very small. Absolute purity of blood in an island so near the Continent as Britain cannot be looked for; and unity of type resulting from isolation from other races, such as that presented by the Australians, is not likely to be met with. It is therefore very probable that some of the variations may be accounted for by the blending of different ethnical elements in one race. I am consequently inclined to view the interments in these two caves as having been made by the same people, in spite of the small cranial difference manifested by the Cefn skull.

The cave in Brysgill, a small ravine leading into the valley of the Elwy, explored by Mr. Mainwaring and Mrs. Williams Wynn in 1871, furnished evidence of the occupation of man, probably of the neolithic age. From a dark layer composed of loam, black with fragments of charcoal, a flint arrow-head, a core, a flake, and broken bones of the horse, Bos longifrons, goat, and dog, were obtained, as well as a few human bones which had not been broken by design.

The excavations carried on in the small tunnel-cave of Plas-Heaton, by Mr. Heaton and Professor Hughes, have shown that it was inhabited at two different ages. In the upper or prehistoric stratum were broken bones of the dog, badger, goat, Bos longifrons, and stag; while in the lower, or pleistocene, were the remains of the hyæna, reindeer, cave-bear, and the lower jaw of the glutton.

The Chambered Tomb near Cefn, St. Asaph.

While the caves at Perthi-Chwareu were being explored, the accidental discovery of human remains in the cairn of Tyddyn Bleiddyn, near Cefn, St. Asaph, in 1869, led to a systematic examination of its contents by Mrs. Williams Wynn, under the superintendence of the Rev. D. R. Thomas, myself, and the Rev. H. H. Winwood, which has resulted in the proof, that the people who buried their dead in caves used stone-chambered tombs for the same purpose.

The cairn of loose fragments of limestone had been removed for road-mending before the cap-stones of the stone chamber were exposed, and these were broken before any scientific observation was made. The Rev. D. R. Thomas, however, rescued many of the human remains from destruction, and began the exploration which defined the extent of the chamber A (Fig. 39).

Subsequently it was resumed in my presence, and the chamber A (Fig. 39) fully cleared out. At the point c it was partially shut off from the passage B by a slab of stone 18 inches high. The passage led from the chamber in a northern direction, and was 6 feet long by 2 wide. The chamber gradually narrowed towards the passage, being 5 feet wide at its broad end, and 9 feet long. In the passage, as well as in the chamber, there were human bones belonging to individuals who had been buried in a crouching posture. Unfortunately, as the remains have been scattered, it is impossible to ascertain the exact number of the burials. I have, however, restored one skull and examined seven frontal bones, and other remains, which indicate that there were at least twelve persons, varying in age from infancy to full prime, buried in this tomb. In addition to these, there is a large box of bones in the possession of the Rev. D. R. Thomas, as well as other remains in other hands. But although the exact number of bodies interred cannot be made out, there is full proof that there were too many to have been deposited at one time in so small a cubic area; and therefore they must have been deposited at different times, as in the caves at Perthi-Chwareu. There were no remains of either wild or domestic animals; and the only foreign object was a small slightly chipped flint pebble. From the remarkable conformation of the nasal bones of some of the skulls, it would seem likely that the burial-place belonged to one family; but, for a reason (see Notes on Human Remains, p. 183) stated by Professor Busk, this is by no means a certain inference.

The plan of the chamber and passage corresponds with that of the long barrow of West Kennet, figured in the “Crania Britannica,” and with that of the cromlech of Le Creux des Fées, Guernsey, described by Lieutenant Oliver.100 In the former of these the corpses were buried in a contracted posture, along with flint scrapers and fragments of rude pottery. In the latter the original contents have disappeared. To speak in general terms, the chamber and passage belong to the class of tombs which Dr. Thurnam names “Long Barrows,” and Professor Nilsson “Ganggräben,” and which are found in Scandinavia and France, as well as in Britain. And it is worthy of note that the partial insulation of the chamber A (Fig. 39) from the passage B by a slab (c), which does not reach up to the height of the walls, is to be seen in similar tombs both in Guernsey and in Brittany.

A second and larger chamber, composed of cave slabs of limestone, was discovered in the same cairn in 1871 by the Rev. D. R. Thomas, and completely excavated by him along with myself and the Rev. H. H. Winwood. It was of a rudely triangular form, 10 feet long by 6 wide, traversed by a partition of slabs, and provided with a narrow passage 10 feet long by 2 feet 6 in width, opening to the north, and fenced off completely from the chamber by a slab, as in the preceding case. Both the chamber and the passage were full of human remains of all ages, buried in a contracted posture; the number of interments being far too great to have allowed the bodies to have been deposited at one time. From the former I identified the broken jaw of a roebuck and remains of goat, a broken flint, and round pebbles of quartz, while in the latter there were the teeth and bones of the dog and the pig.

Some of the tibiæ from both the chambers were platycnemic, but that character was only to be recognized in the older bones. The skulls, from the second of the two chambers, agree so exactly with those from the caves, that it is not necessary to add to the table of measurements which Professor Busk has drawn up (p. 171).

Correlation of Chambered Tomb with Interments in the Caves of Perthi-Chwareu and Cefn.

Nor are we without evidence that the builders of this cairn belonged to the same race as those who buried their dead in the caves of Perthi-Chwareu and of Cefn. The crania and the limb-bones are identical, and in both the tombs and caves the dead were buried in a contracted posture.

Why then, it may be asked, were the remains of animals so rare in the one and so abundant in the other? In my opinion this difference may be explained by the hypothesis, invented by Professor Nilsson, of the origin of chambered tombs.101 The idea of the “gallery graves,” according to that high authority, was derived from the subterranean house in which the deceased lived, and in which he was buried after his death, after the fashion of the Eskimos at the present day. The plan of the houses, like that of the ancient Lycian dwellings described by Sir Charles Fellowes, was preserved in the tombs, and probably for many ages after houses were no longer made in that fashion; since the principle of conservatism and the force of custom are more deeply rooted in religious and solemn ceremonial than in the changes of every-day life.

The rarity of the remains of the animals may be explained by the fact of these tombs never having been used as dwellings, while their abundance in the caves may be accounted for by the latter having been inhabited by man, and thus the idea of the dead resting in his own house would be the cause of burial both in caves and chambered tombs. It is not at all strange that the same race should have used both for sepulture, when we consider that a “gallery grave” is an artificial cave, and that natural caves are few in number.

This ancient race is proved by the remains to have been pastoral, rather than dependent on the chase, their principal food being the domestic goat, the short-horn (Bos longifrons), the horse, and hog. They are also proved to have been neolithic, not merely by the discovery of a polished stone axe in one of the caves, but also by the shape of the “gallery graves,” which Professor Nilsson and Dr. Thurnam agree in referring to that stage of culture.

Table of Contents of Caves and Chambered Tomb.

The contents of the caves and the stone chambers may be gathered from the Table which we give on the next page.

The broken bones of the hare prove that there was no prejudice against its flesh, as was the case among the neolithic dwellers in the Swiss Pfahlbauten. We shall see in the next chapter that the animal was also eaten by the dwellers in the neolithic caves both of France and Belgium.

List of Objects in Neolithic Caves and Cairn in North Wales.

Description of the Human Remains by Professor Busk.

For the following account of the human remains, reprinted from the “Journal of the Ethnological Society,” January 1871, I am indebted to the kindness of my friend Professor Busk, to whom examples of all the forms were forwarded:—