IMPLEMENTS OF THE PALÆOLITHIC PERIOD.

CHAPTER XXII. CAVE IMPLEMENTS.

In this second division of my subject, I must pass in review a class of implements of stone, which, though belonging to an earlier period than those already described, it appeared to me to be better to take second rather than first in order. My reasons for thus reversing what might seem to be the natural arrangement of my subject, and ascending instead of descending the stream of time, I have already to some extent assigned. I need only now repeat that our sole chronology for measuring the antiquity of such objects is by a retrogressive scale from the present time, and not by a progression of years from any remote given epoch; and that though we have evidence of the vast antiquity of the class of implements which I am about to describe, and may at the present moment regard them as the earliest known works of man, yet we should gravely err, were we for a moment to presume on the impossibility of still earlier relics being discovered. Had they been taken first in order, it might have been thought that some countenance was given to a belief that we had in these implements the first efforts of human skill, and were able to trace the progressive development of the industrial arts from the very cradle of our race. Such is by no means the case. The investigators into the early history of mankind are like explorers in search of the source of one of those mighty rivers which traverse whole continents: we have departed from the homes of modern civilization in ascending the stream, and arrived at a spot where traces of human existence are but few, and animal life has assumed strange and unknown forms; but further progress is for the moment denied, and though we may plainly perceive that we are nearer the source {474} of which we are in search, yet we know not at what distance it may still be from us; nor, indeed, can we be certain in what direction it lies, nor even whether it will ultimately be discovered. Whether or no, traces of human existence will eventually be found in deposits belonging to Miocene, or even earlier, times, I may take this occasion of remarking that the evidence hitherto adduced on this point by continental geologists is, to my mind, after full and careful examination still very far from satisfactory. At the same time, judging from all analogy, there can be but little doubt that the human race will eventually be proved to date back to an earlier period than the Pleistocene or Quaternary, though it will probably not be in Europe that the evidence on this point will be forthcoming.

The instruments of stone, found in ossiferous caves and in ancient alluvial deposits, associated with remains of a fauna now in great part extinct, belong to a period which has been termed by Sir John Lubbock, the Palæolithic, in contradistinction to the Neolithic Period, the relics of which are usually found upon, or near, the surface of the soil. By others, the more familiar, even if less accurately discriminative, terms of Cave Period and River-drift, or even Drift Period, have been adopted.

Though I propose in these pages to treat of the implements from the caves and from the river-gravels separately, it must not be supposed that there exists of necessity any demonstrable difference in the age of the two classes of relics. On the contrary, though there can be but little doubt that the deposition of the implement-bearing beds, both in the one case and the other, extended over a very considerable space of time, and that therefore neither all of the cave-deposits nor all of the river-drifts can be regarded as absolutely contemporaneous; yet there appears every probability that some, at least, of the deposits in each of the two classes synchronize; and that some caves were being partially filled with earth containing relics of human workmanship and animal remains, at the same time that, in certain ancient river-valleys, alluvial drifts were being formed with similar works of man and bones of animals belonging to the same fauna, incorporated in them.

And yet, as a rule, the character of a group of implements collected from the cave-deposits differs in its general facies from one obtained from the old River-drifts. This is no doubt mainly due to the different conditions under which the two deposits were {475} formed; for, especially when they were undoubtedly human habitations, the caves seem to have been under more favourable conditions both for the reception and the preservation of a greater proportion of the smaller forms of instruments than the River-drifts; but their comparative scarcity in the collections formed from the latter is also no doubt partly due to the difficulty in finding such minute objects when imbedded in a mass of gravel, even had they remained uninjured in the course of its deposition. On the other hand, the rarity of the larger forms of implements in the cave deposits, appears to be due to these instruments having been mainly used for what may be termed “out of doors” purposes.

Again, though in some instances the River-drift and Cave-deposits belong apparently to the same period, yet in others it seems possible that we have, in the caves, relics derived from a period alike unrepresented in the old alluvia and in the superficial soil; and which may belong to an intermediate age, and thus possibly assist, especially in the case of some caves in the neighbourhood of Mentone, to bridge over the gap that would otherwise intervene between the River-drift and the Surface Period. It is not, indeed, in our English caves, that such good evidence of a sequence in the order of the deposition of their contents can be observed, as in those of the south of France, and of Belgium, in which a sort of chronological succession has been pointed out by M. Gabriel de Mortillet and others, as will subsequently be seen. It will of course be understood that this sequence in no way refers to the occupation of caverns by man in modern, or even Neolithic times. Many caves in this, as in other countries, have been the retreats or dwelling-places of man at various, and often very remote, periods: though subsequent to the time when their earlier contents had been sealed up beneath a layer of stalagmite, itself a work of centuries of slow deposition of carbonate of lime held in solution by water infiltrating from above. It is owing to the occasional admixture of the more recent remains with those of older date, either in the progress of the excavation of the caverns, or by the burrowing of animals, or in some cases possibly by pits having been sunk in the floor of the cave by some of its successive human occupants, that doubt has been thrown in former times on the value of the evidence afforded by cavern-deposits, as to the co-existence of man with animals now extinct, such as the Siberian mammoth and its common associate, the woolly-haired rhinoceros. The more {476} careful researches of modern times have, however, in most cases, removed all sources of error under this head; and the fact of this co-existence being now established, we are to a great extent able to eliminate the doubtful portions of the older-recorded observations, and to give to the residue a value which it did not formerly possess.

Before proceeding, however, to discuss any of the evidence afforded by cavern-deposits on the existence of man and the nature of his tools and implements in those early days, it will be well to say a few words both as to the nature of ossiferous caves in general, and as to the probable manner in which their contents were deposited in the positions in which we now find them. In doing this, I shall be as brief as possible, and will content myself with referring the reader, who is desirous of further details, to works more strictly geological. [2377]

What must strike all observers at the outset is, that caverns vary greatly both in their character and in their dimensions; some being long and sinuous, in places contracting into narrow passages, and then again expanding into halls more or less vast; while others are merely vaulted recesses in the face of a rock, or even long grooves running along the face of some almost perpendicular though inland cliff. Most of the English ossiferous caverns belong to the former class, while the majority of those of the Dordogne and some other parts of the south of France belong to the latter. These recesses and rock-shelters apparently owe their existence to a somewhat different cause from that which produced the long sinuous cavities. They usually occur in cliffs of which the stratification is approximately horizontal, but where the different beds vary much in their degree of hardness and permeability to water. The softer strata, underlying the harder masses, are in consequence more liable to be acted upon by rain, wind, and frost, so that they weather away faster, and leave deep recesses in the face of the cliffs, admirably adapted for conversion, with but little trouble, into dry and commodious shelters from the weather, which have in consequence been seized on for habitation by man from the earliest times to the present day. Caves of this character may possibly in some rare instances have been due to the eroding action of the sea, before the land was elevated to its present {477} level; but in most cases they have originated from the atmospheric agencies that I have mentioned, attacking most destructively the softer portions of the rocks, which are usually of a calcareous nature.

The caverns of the other class also generally occur in limestone districts, and seem in like manner to be mainly due to atmospheric causes, though operating in a different manner. They usually appear to have originated with some small crack or fissure in the rock, along which, water falling on the surface was able to find its way to some vent at a lower level; and this, by its continual passage, was able to enlarge the channel along which it flowed. The mechanically erosive force of pure water in passing over or even falling upon a rock of moderate hardness is indeed but small, though its powers of friction were long since recognized by that most enlightened of ancient geologists, the poet Ovid, [2378] who classes its effects with the wearing away of a ring upon the finger. Nor was Solomon’s likening of the contentions of a wife to a continual dropping, without its geological significance. But in the case of water derived from rain falling on the surface, and passing through a fissure in a limestone rock, its first effects are chemical rather than mechanical. [2379]

By contact with decaying vegetable matter the water becomes charged with a certain amount of carbonic acid, and is rendered capable of dissolving a portion of the calcareous rock through which it passes, and thus carries it off in solution, while in so doing it acquires the character known as “hard.” Taking the case of water delivered by springs in the chalk, which has but a moderate degree of hardness, it is proved by analysis to contain about seventeen grains of carbonate of lime to the gallon. Now, out of a rainfall of say twenty-six inches annually, it has been found by experiment, that in a chalk district about nine inches would, in average seasons, make their way down to the springs; and it may be readily calculated that at the rate of seventeen grains to the gallon, the amount of dry chalk or carbonate of lime dissolved by this quantity of water, and delivered by the springs, and thus carried away, is, in each square mile of such a district, upwards of one hundred and forty tons in each year, or about a {478} ton to every four and a half acres. This serves to show how great are the solvent powers of water charged with carbonic acid, and the extent to which, in the course of centuries, it might remove the calcareous rocks with which it came in contact. But when once by this action a channel had been excavated sufficiently large to admit of the rapid passage of a stream of water through it, and the circumstances of the case allowed of such a stream, its enlargement would probably become more rapid, as the water would be liable to be charged with sand and small pebbles, the friction of which would materially conduce to the removal of the rock, the varying hardness of which, combined with the intersection of other channels and fissures, would probably lead to the formation of chambers of various sizes along the course of the channel. In some caverns, we find the streams of water, to which probably they owe their existence, still flowing through them; but in others, the external features of the surrounding country have so much changed since their formation, that the gathering grounds for such streams have been removed by denudation, and water now only finds its way into them by slow percolation through the rock which forms their roof and walls.

It is this same process of denudation which, by removing some portion of the rock in which the caverns were originally formed, has brought them in communication with the outer world, and has thus rendered them accessible to man.

Leaving out of the question the blocks and fragments of stone falling in from the ceiling of the caverns, the methods by which the ossiferous deposits in them may have been formed, are various. The bones may be those of animals which have died in the caverns, or they may have been brought there by beasts of prey, or by man, or by running water, or possibly by several of these agencies combined.

In the case of the caves and rock-shelters of the Dordogne, and many of those in Belgium, the deposits are almost exclusively neither more nor less than refuse heaps, containing the bones, fractured and unfractured, of animals which have served for human food, mixed with which are the lost and waste tools, utensils, and weapons, and even the cooking-hearths of the early cave-dwellers; so that in character they closely resemble the kjökken-möddings of the Danish coasts; though, from their position being usually inland, the marine shells in which these latter abound are, for the most part, absent. The object in resorting to the caves was, no {479} doubt, shelter; while the reason for the Danish kjökken-möddings occurring along the coasts is to be found in the fact, that the principal food of those who left these heaps of refuse, was derived from the sea.

In other instances, the tenancy of a cave by man seems to have alternated with that by bears, hyænas, or other predaceous animals; so that the relics left by the two classes of occupants have become more or less mixed, sometimes without the intervention of water, and sometimes by its aid. In such caves, it is commonly the case that the bones are imbedded in a red loamy matrix, to which the name of “cave-earth” has been given, and which appears to consist, in a great measure, of those portions of the limestone-rock that are insoluble in water charged with carbonic acid. [2380] Such red loams are common not only in caves, but on the surface of many calcareous rocks, and would be liable to be brought into any place of resort of man or beast, adhering to the feet and skin, especially in wet weather; though some portion of what is found in the caves may be a kind of caput mortuum left in position after dissolution and removal of the calcareous rock; or it may be sediment deposited from turbid water.

Another important feature in caverns is the stalagmitic covering with which the bone deposit is so frequently sealed up or converted into a breccia. Like the stalactites on the ceiling, the stalagmite on the floor is a gradually-formed laminated deposit, composed of thin films of crystalline carbonate of lime, deposited from the water in which it was held in solution as a bicarbonate, by the escape of the excess of carbonic acid which rendered it soluble. I have already cited the action of rain-water falling on a surface of limestone covered with decaying vegetable matter as an agent in forming subterranean channels; but we have here, curiously enough, the reverse action produced of filling them up. For this to take place, contact with the air appears to be necessary; so that at the time when a cavern was completely filled with water, no calcareous spar would be deposited. If partially filled, though stalactites might be formed, stalagmite would not; and it is probably to some alternation of wet and dry conditions that several beds of alluvium [2381] occasionally occur interstratified between successive layers of stalagmite. When, as occasionally happens, the {480} water percolating through the rock finds its way into the cave by the walls rather than the roof, we find stalagmite only, exhibiting its greatest thickness round the edges of the cave and cementing its contents into a breccia. This is the case with some of the caves of the Dordogne and the South of France, and does not seem of necessity to imply any great alteration in the physical conditions of the surrounding country since the caves were formed. It is also possible that the floors of the caves have, by being trodden, become more impervious to water than they originally were, and that a loose mass of porous bones upon them may, by conducing to evaporation, have caused a deposit of carbonate of lime from water which, had the caves remained unoccupied, might have run through or over the floors without forming such a deposit.

With the other class of long and tortuous caves we must, in nearly all cases, recognize, with Sir Charles Lyell, [2382] three successive phases:—1st, the period of the dissolution of the rock to form the channel; 2nd, the time when the channel was traversed and enlarged by subterranean currents of water; and, 3rd, the period when these currents were diverted, and the cave became filled with air instead of water.

The rate of deposit of stalagmitic matter varies so much with different conditions, that its thickness affords no true criterion of the length of time during which it has accumulated. Under ordinary circumstances, however, a thickness of even a few inches requires a long period of years for its formation.

Having made these few preliminary remarks as to the formation of caverns and the deposits occurring in them, I proceed to notice some of their characteristics in connection with the relics of human workmanship found in the deposits, and in doing so cannot restrict myself to British caves, but must refer also to some of those on the Continent, which are more numerous, and have likewise furnished a more extensive and varied series of remains.

It had not escaped the attention of early authors, that in remote times specus erant pro domibus; [2383] and, to use the words of Prometheus, [2384] “men lived like little ants beneath the ground in the gloomy recesses of caves.” It is, however, strange to find a Roman author recording the occurrence of worked flints in the caves of the Pyrenees; for if we accept the description of the ceraunia given {481} by Sotacus, and preserved by Pliny, of which mention has already been made, there can be but little doubt of the term referring either to stone hatchets, worked flints, or arrow-heads, of some such kind as those still known as thunderbolts; and therefore that when Claudian, [2385] early in the fifth century, wrote

“Pyrenæisque sub antris

Ignea flumineæ legere ceraunia nymphæ,”

he must have had in his mind some account of the occurrence of such objects in that district, where so many discoveries of this character have since been made.

The researches of MM. Tournal, de Christol, and Marcel de Serres, now some sixty or seventy years ago, by which the co-existence of man with many of the extinct mammals was rendered probable, if, indeed, not actually proved, were directed to caverns which, though not in the immediate neighbourhood of the Pyrenees, were still in the South of France. These researches are well known to geologists, but the most important discoveries are those made in more modern times, in caverns principally in the Dordogne and other departments of the ancient Province of Aquitaine, by the late Prof. E. Lartet [2386] and Mr. Henry Christy, as well as by M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, the Marquis de Vibraye, MM. Garrigou, Rames, Brun, Cazalis de Fondouce, Ferry, Gervais, Cartailhac, Piette, Boule, Massénat, Chantre, and numerous other active investigators.

The discoveries made by Dr. Schmerling [2387] in the caves of Belgium, an account of which he published in 1833, showed that human bones, as well as worked flints, and bone instruments were associated with the remains of extinct animals in several instances; and, though not gaining general acceptance at the time, have since been fully borne out by the investigations so ably conducted by Dr. E. Dupont.

The late Prof. E. Lartet [2388] some years ago suggested a classification of the different divisions of Time represented in the French caves containing traces of man associated with various animal bones, under successive heads, as the Ages of the Cave-bear, the Mammoth, the Reindeer, and the Bison, in accordance with the comparative abundance of the remains of each of these animals in {482} the different caves. Had the conditions in all cases been the same, there can be no doubt that any marked variations in the fauna of the same region would afford valuable criteria for determining such a chronological sequence. But such decided differences cannot at present be traced; and inasmuch as the animal remains in the caverns under consideration have, almost without exception, been introduced into the caves by human agency, and been merely the refuse of the spoils of the chase consumed by the old cave-dwellers, we may readily conceive reasons why, without any great natural change in the fauna, the proportionate numbers of the different animals eaten during a certain number of years might vary in different caves. Still the effect of human agency in causing an alteration in the larger mammalian fauna of a district is great, and of this, researches in caverns may probably afford evidence.

Dr. E. Dupont [2389] has adopted a somewhat similar, but more limited, and therefore safer view with regard to the caverns of Belgium, and has moreover correlated the cave-deposits with those of wider range. The rolled pebbles and stratified clay of the river-valleys he regards as synchronous with the deposits in certain caves belonging to what he terms the Mammoth Period; and the angular gravels and brick-earth, of somewhat later date, he connects with the caves of the Reindeer Period.

As will shortly be seen, there appears good reason for regarding the two sets of caverns thus characterized, as belonging to different ages; and if the use of the terms Mammoth and Reindeer Periods be not supposed to limit the duration of the existence of those animals in France and Belgium to so short a space of time, geologically speaking, as that represented by the infilling of each set of caves, no harm can arise from the adoption of the terms.

Under any circumstances, with our present knowledge, there seems a sufficient variation in the proportion of the different animals one to the other, and also in the character of the implements in different caves, to justify the conclusion that the cave-remains of Western Europe are memorials, not of some comparatively short Troglodyte phase of the human race, but of a lengthened chapter in its history. And yet this chapter seems to have been completely closed before the implements belonging to the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period had come into use; for though these also {483} occur in the more superficial cavern-deposits, they are not only stratigraphically more recent than the instruments often found imbedded deep below them, but are also associated with a different and more modern fauna, and even with domesticated animals, of which none are as yet known to have belonged to the Palæolithic Period.

M. Gabriel de Mortillet, [2390] judging rather from the character of the works of man found in the caves, and from what appears to be the order of superposition in certain cases, than from the mammalian fauna, has arranged them in a manner which to some extent coincides with the views of M. Lartet and Dr. Dupont. To each division he has assigned the name of some well-known deposit, such as he regards as being the most characteristic in its contents.

As M. de Mortillet’s classification has now been almost universally accepted, it will be well here to adopt it, though in some respects it differs from the arrangement proposed in my first edition. I there attempted to give references to the works in which the different caves in France and other continental countries have been described, but, at the present day, the number of caves explored is so great, and the literature relating to them so extensive, that I must confine myself to British caves, and make but passing reference to some of those in other countries.

I take M. de Mortillet’s arrangement in ascending, and not in descending geological order; that is to say, I here describe the older deposits first. Leaving the Age of Chelles, or, as I prefer to call it, of St. Acheul (ACHEULÉEN), which is characterized by the high-level River-gravels, subsequently described, we come to:—

1. AGE OF LE MOUSTIER, [2391] DORDOGNE (MOUSTÉRIEN).—Characteristics—Ovate-lanceolate implements much resembling some of those from the River-gravels; large broad implements and flakes worked on one face only into “choppers” or “side-scrapers,” like those from High Lodge, Mildenhall; large subtriangular flakes wrought at the edge into spear-head-like and round-ended forms; rough “sling-stones” and flakes; scrapers not abundant.

An almost entire absence of instruments of bone; and a large proportion of those of flint, of considerable size. {484}

Remains of mammoth and hyæna apparently more abundant than in the following ages. Reindeer less dominant numerically than at Solutré or la Madelaine. Bones comparatively scarce. No remains of birds or fish.

2. AGE OF SOLUTRÉ [2392] (SAÔNE ET LOIRE) (SOLUTRÉEN).—Characteristics—Lance-heads or daggers delicately chipped on both faces; lozenge and leaf-shaped arrow-heads (?) closely resembling some of those of the Neolithic Period. They are all scarce. Sharp knife-like flakes trimmed to a narrow point at one end from a shoulder about midway of the blade; scrapers; borers.

Pointed lance-heads of bone or reindeer horn. Engraved bones, extremely scarce, but a small figure of a reindeer carved in calcareous stone found at Solutré. Some carvings in bone towards the end of the Period. A few marine or fossil shells.

Fauna much as at la Madelaine. Several teeth of mammoth, felis spelæa and cervus megaceros, found at Laugerie. Horse common; but at Solutré, reindeer the principal food.

3. AGE OF LA MADELAINE, DORDOGNE (MAGDALÉNIEN).—Characteristics—Long and well-shaped flint flakes and neatly-formed cores abundant, as are also scrapers; but side-scrapers extremely rare, and the leaf-shaped lance- and arrow-heads unknown. Pebbles with mortar-like depressions, rounded hammer-stones, grooved sharpening-stones. Scraped hæmatite. Saws of flint in some caves.

Pointed dart-heads, both plain and ornamented on the faces, arrow-heads, of bone split at the base, as well as harpoon-heads formed of reindeer horn or bone, barbed on one or both sides, and adapted to fit in a socket at the end of the shaft. Perforated bone needles, often of minute size.

Works of art, such as engravings on stone, bone, reindeer horn, and ivory; carvings in most of these materials, perforated and carved “bâtons de commandement” of reindeer horn. Ornaments formed of pierced bones and teeth, and of fossil shells.

Fauna much as in other caves, but a larger proportion of reindeer than horse. Mammoth remains scarce. Bones of birds and fish abundant.

In the cave of the Mas d’Azil [2393] was a layer of pebbles with {485} various patterns painted upon them in red. Such pebbles have not as yet been found in any British cave deposits. Some of the designs curiously resemble early alphabetic characters. There is some doubt as to the exact age of the contents of this cave, which not improbably may be Neolithic.

Such is a general summary of what appear to be the characteristics of these three divisions. It must, however, be remembered that, in some caves at all events, there is a probability of the contents belonging to more than one of these periods, where the occupation by man has been of sufficiently extended duration.

M. Philippe Salmon [2394] has united the Palæolithic and Neolithic Ages into one which he regards as continuous, and sub-divides into six stages with transitions between them.

With regard to the fauna of the caves of Britain, I cannot do better than refer to the comprehensive list published by Professor Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S.; [2395] and will merely cite some of the principal animals now either extinct or no longer found living in this country, the remains of which have occurred in association with objects of human manufacture in caverns:—Spermophilus citillus, pouched marmot; Mus lemmus, lemming; Lepus diluvianus, extinct hare; Lagomys pusillus, tail-less hare; Ursus arctos, brown bear; Ursus spelæus, cave-bear; Ursus ferox, grizzly bear; Hyæna crocuta, var. spelæa, cave-hyæna; Felis leo, var. spelæa, cave-lion; Felis pardus, leopard; Machairodus latidens, sabre-toothed tiger; Cervus megaceros, Irish elk; Cervus tarandus, reindeer; Bos primigenius, urus; Bison priscus, bison or aurochs; Rhinoceros tichorhinus, woolly-haired rhinoceros; Elephas primigenius, mammoth; Hippopotamus amphibius, var. major, Hippopotamus. Further details as to the fauna of Kent’s Cavern will be found on a subsequent page.

The fauna of the caves is in fact practically identical with that of the River Gravels.

The same author [2396] has pointed out how vast is the difference between the mammalian fauna of the Pleistocene, Quaternary, or Palæolithic Period, and that of the Pre-historic or Neolithic Period. “Out of forty-eight well-ascertained species living in the former, only thirty-one were able to live on into the latter; and out of those thirty-one, all, with the exception of six, {486} are still living in our island. The cave-bear, cave-lion, and cave-hyæna had vanished away, along with a whole group of pachyderms, and of all the extinct animals, but one, the Irish elk, still survived. The reindeer, so enormously abundant during the post-glacial epoch, lived on, greatly reduced in numbers; while the red deer, which was rare, became very numerous, and usurped those feeding grounds which formerly supported vast herds of the reindeer. With this exception, all the Arctic group of mammalia, such as the musk-sheep and the marmots, had retreated northwards; a fact which shows that the climate of Britain during prehistoric times was warmer, or rather less severe than during the former epoch.” Only in the Neolithic Period do the goat, sheep, long-faced ox (Bos longifrons), and dog, make their appearance in Britain.

This difference in the fauna is of great importance, as affording some guide in judging of the antiquity of human remains when found in caverns without any characteristic weapons or implements; such, for instance, as the human skull cited by Prof. Boyd Dawkins [2397] as having been found in a cave at the head of Cheddar Pass, in Somersetshire. For it must never be forgotten that the occupation of caves by man is not confined to any definite period; and that even in the case of the discovery of objects of human workmanship in direct association with the remains of the Pleistocene extinct mammals, their contemporaneity cannot be proved without careful observation of the circumstances under which they occur, even if then. Another point may also be here mentioned, namely, that where there is evidence of the occupation of a cavern by man, and also by large carnivores, they can hardly have been tenants in common, but the one must have preceded the other, or possibly the occupation by each may have alternated more than once. Bones [2398] that have been gnawed by animals have sometimes the appearance of having been shaped by man. This is especially the case when beavers or porcupines have gnawed the bones. In determining the age of a cave-deposit the greatest circumspection is required, and special evidence is necessary in each individual case. Without, therefore, at present entering on any such questions, I proceed to notice the principal explorations of British caves, which have as yet been made, and the narratives of those who conducted them. In doing this I {487} shall, of course, confine myself to those caverns in which some traces of man or his works have been discovered in connection with the earlier fauna, of which mention has already been made.

First on the list of systematic explorers stands the name of the late Dr. Buckland, subsequently Dean of Westminster, who, upwards of seventy years ago, conducted excavations in most of the ossiferous caves of Britain at that time known; and also made more than one expedition into Germany, with a view of studying analogous caverns in that country. His “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” published in 1823, and containing, in part, matter already printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the previous year, presents an interesting account of his researches. Unfortunately, however, he sought in the phenomena of the caves and the old alluvia evidence of a universal deluge, and not any record of an extended chapter in the world’s history; and, though at a later period of his life he renounced these views, yet the effect of his regarding all human relics as post-diluvial, was to give a bias to geological opinion so strongly against the belief in their true association with the remains of the extinct mammals, as to cause some careful inquirers almost to doubt the correctness of their own observations.

Still, so far as the instances cited in the “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ” go, his judgment appears to have been in the main correct. The only case in which there can be much doubt is that of the so-called “red woman of Paviland;” for, as Prof. Boyd Dawkins [2399] has pointed out, there appears to have been in this, as in some other caves, a mixture of remains belonging to two distinct periods. This is proved by the presence of remains of sheep, underneath the bones of elephants and other Pleistocene mammals, as well as by the disturbed state of the cave-earth, so that the skeleton, though of very early date, may not impossibly belong to the Neolithic Period. The discoveries in the caves near Mentone may, however, eventually throw more light upon the question.

In size the skeleton equalled that of the largest male in the Oxford Museum, [2400] so that the name of “red woman” appears misplaced. The most remarkable feature in the case is that with the skeleton were found a number of nearly cylindrical rods and fragments of rings of ivory, which appear to have been made from some of the elephant tusks in the cave. If this were so, {488} the state of preservation of the tusks at the time of their being manufactured must have been better than is usual in caverns, though fossil ivory from Siberia is still employed for making knife-handles and for other purposes; and an elephant’s tusk, found in a clay deposit in the Carse of Falkirk, [2401] was sold to an ivory-turner and cut up into pieces for the lathe before it could be rescued. The late Dr. Falconer, [2402] suggested that the ivory articles may have been imported, and have had no connection with the older tusks. Be this as it may, the case is not one on which to insist; and I therefore pass on at once to a consideration of those caves in Britain in which the occurrence of stone instruments of human manufacture, in close association with the relics of extinct animals, and under such circumstances as prove a vast antiquity, are thoroughly well authenticated.

KENT’S CAVERN, TORQUAY.

The notices of this well-known cave by various authors, prior to 1859, have been carefully collected and published by the late Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S., [2403] but of these, it is needless to cite here more than the accounts given by the Rev. J. MacEnery, F.G.S., Mr. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., and Mr. E. Vivian.

MacEnery, who for many years was chaplain at Tor Abbey, having had his attention first directed to the cave by the discovery in it of fossil bones, during the year 1824–5, by Mr. Northmore and the late Sir W. C. Trevelyan, devoted himself in the most enthusiastic manner to an examination of the contents of the cavern, and with the most successful results. He prepared for the press an account of his “Cavern Researches,” for which numerous plates were engraved, apparently by the aid of Dr. Buckland, but he did not live to publish it, and it was first printed in a somewhat abridged form by Mr. Vivian in the year 1859. The whole of what remained of his MS. has, however, since been published verbatim, by Mr. Pengelly. [2404] He relates the discovery in the upper deposits of numerous relics, such as flakes and nuclei of flint, polished celts of syenite and greenstone, bone pins, and long {489} comb-like instruments, all belonging to the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period, and in some cases to a later date. But he also describes three [2405] special kinds of flint or chert instruments, to which he calls particular attention. 1st. Flakes pointed at one end. 2nd. Oblong double-edged splinters truncated at each end, which he thinks may “have been employed as knives or chisels for dividing and shaping wood, and which exhibit the marks of wear on their edges;” and 3rd. “Oval-shaped discs chipped round to an edge, from 2 to 3 1 ⁄ 2 inches across, and some of them diminished to a point, like wedges. This part in these specimens was observed to be blunted, apparently from knocking like a hammer against hard bodies, while the sides, which in such an operation would not be used, still remained sharp.” The modification in the substance of the flint of which these instruments are composed is noticed, and it is stated that at their transverse fracture many are porous and absorbent, adhering to the tongue, like fossil bones, and so closely that they support their weight.

Though evidently in dread of recording facts not quite in accordance with Dr. Buckland’s views, he states distinctly that the true position [2406] of these implements was below the bottom of the stalagmite; and it is not a little remarkable that among the nine specimens selected for engraving by Mr. MacEnery, and given in his Plate T, as knives, arrow-heads, and hatchets of flint and chert found in Kent’s Hole, Torquay, three are of a distinctly palæolithic type, and two presumably so, the others being mere flakes, but of a character quite in accordance with their belonging to the same period as the better-defined types.

He further observes that “none of the cavern blades appeared to have been rubbed or polished, but exhibit the rough serrated edge of the original fracture. This difference alone may not be sufficient to authorize us in assigning to the cavern reliques a higher antiquity, but the absence of other Druidical remains at the depth where the flints abound, is a negative confirmation.” That one who observed so well should, out of deference to the prejudices of others, have sometimes been doubtful of the evidence of his own eyes, and have been driven to postpone until too late the publication of the records of his observations, must ever be a cause of regret to all lovers of science and of truth.

The next explorer of the cavern was Mr. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., who in 1840 communicated a paper on the {490} “Bone Caves of Devonshire” [2407] to the Geological Society, and subsequently another memoir on the “Geology of the South-east of Devonshire,” in which the former was incorporated. He stated that “works of art, such as arrow-heads and knives of flint, occur in all parts of the cave, and throughout the entire thickness of the clay; and no distinction founded on condition, distribution, or relative position can be observed whereby the human can be separated from the other reliquiæ,” among which he mentions teeth and bones of elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, horse, bear, hyæna, and of a feline animal of large size.

In 1846 a committee was appointed by the Torquay Natural History Society, to explore a small portion of the cavern, and a paper detailing the results of the investigation was communicated by Mr. E. Vivian to the British Association and to the Geological Society, in which he stated that the important point established was that relics of human art are found beneath the floor of stalagmite, even where its thickness is about three feet. The abstract of this paper, as published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, [2408] seems to show how little such a statement was in accordance with the geological opinion of the day. It runs as follows:—“On KENT’S CAVERN, near TORQUAY, by EDWARD VIVIAN, Esq. In this paper an account was given of some recent researches in that cavern by a committee of the Torquay Natural History Society, during which the bones of various extinct species of animals were found in several situations.”

In 1856, Mr. Vivian again called the attention of the British Association to this cavern, and, in 1859, he published the greater part of Mr. MacEnery’s MS., of which mention has already been made. The ossiferous cave at Brixham had been discovered in the previous year, in which also the collection of implements discovered in the river-drift of the Valley of the Somme, formed by M. Boucher de Perthes, had been visited by the late Dr. Falconer—a visit which resulted in that of the late Sir Joseph Prestwich and myself in 1859, and in public interest being excited in these remarkable discoveries, the area of which was soon extended to numerous other valleys, both in France and Britain. Encouraged by the success which had attended the exploration of the old alluvia, the British Association, in 1864, appointed a committee consisting of Sir Charles Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Professor {491} Phillips, Mr. Vivian, Mr. Pengelly, and myself, to make a systematic exploration of Kent’s Cavern, which was placed at our disposal by Sir Lawrence Palk, the proprietor. From that time, until 1880, the exploration was steadily carried on under the immediate and constant superintendence of Mr. Pengelly and Mr. Vivian; and the names of Professor Busk, Professor Boyd Dawkins, and Mr. W. A. Sanford, F.G.S., were added to the list of the committee. Mr. Pengelly, who acted as reporter to the committee, has in successive years rendered sixteen accounts to the Association [2409] of the progress of the researches, which have been printed in their yearly Reports from 1865 to 1880. Mr. Pengelly has also communicated a long series of papers upon the exploration of the Cave [2410] to the Devonshire Association. I have been allowed, for the purposes of this volume, to figure a certain number of the instruments discovered in Kent’s Cavern, and for the details I give concerning them, I am indebted partly to the annual reports already mentioned, and partly to the kindness of the late Mr. Pengelly.

The cave is about a mile east of Torquay harbour, and is of a sinuous character, running deeply into a hill of Devonian Limestone, about half a mile distant from the sea. In places, it expands into large chambers, to which various distinctive names have been given.

It is needless for me to enter into any particulars as to the method employed in conducting the explorations, by which the position of each object discovered was accurately determined. I may, however, shortly describe the series of deposits met with in the spacious chamber near the entrance to the cave, which has been the principal scene of the discoveries, and which corresponds in its main features with the other parts of the cave. The deposits are as follows, in descending order:—

Above the upper stalagmite, principally in the black mould, have been found a number of relics belonging to different periods, such as socketed celts, and a socketed knife of bronze, some small fragments of roughly-smelted copper, about four hundred flint flakes, cores, and chips, a polishing stone, a ring of stone already described, numerous spindle-whorls, bone instruments terminating in comb-like ends, probably used for weaving, pottery, marine shells, numerous mammalian bones of existing species, and some human bones, on which it has been thought there are traces indicative of cannibalism. Some of the pottery is distinctly Roman in character, but many of the objects belong, no doubt, to pre-Roman times.

It is, however, with the implements found in the beds below, which had already, at least two thousand years ago, been sealed up beneath the thick coating of stalagmite, formed by a deposition of film upon film of calcareous matter once held in solution, that I have here to do.

In some places, it is true that owing to previous excavations, and to the presence of burrowing animals, the remains from above and below the stalagmite have become intermingled; but I shall not cite any objects, about the original position of which there is any doubt.

The principal forms are these: flat ovoid implements with an edge all round; pointed kite-shaped or triangular implements; flakes of flint of various sizes and wrought into different shapes, including the so-called scrapers; the cores from which flakes have been struck, and stones which have been used as hammers or pounders. Besides these, a few pins, harpoons, and needles of bone have been discovered. {493}