Ordinary Meeting, October 31st, 1871. 



E. W. BiNNEY, F.RS, F.G.S, President, in the Chair. 



Mr. David Winstanley and Mr. John Asliworth were 

 elected Ordinary Members of the Society. 



Mr. Wm. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., gave a short account of 

 the discoveries in the Victoria cave, made since the last 

 account was published in the Transactions of the Society. 

 The clay forming the bottom of the cave, and which hitherto 

 had been barren, was noAV yielding broken fragments of 

 bone, some of which had been gnawed by the cave-hysena. 

 A lower jaw of this animal was found, which indicated tlie 

 presence of the characteristic Pleistocene mammpJia in a 

 part of Yorkshire in which they had not been knov/n to 

 have existed up to the present tim.e. There were, therefore, 

 three distinct groups of remains in the cave. The Romano- 

 Celtic on the surface, the Neolithic beneath, and lastly that 

 which has been furnished by the clay which is glacial in 

 character. And since two feet of talus had been accumulated 

 above the Romano-celtic lawyer during the last 1,200 years, it 

 is very probable that the accumulation of debris of precisely 

 the same character between the Romano-celtic and Neolithic 

 layers, six feet in thickness, was formed in about thrice the 

 time, or 8,600 years. If this rough estimate be accepted, 

 and it is probably true approximately the Neolithic occupa- 

 tion of the cave must date back to between 4,000 and 5,000 

 years ago. There is no clue to the relative antiquity of the 

 group of remains found in the clay ; but it may safely be 

 stated to be far greater than that of the Neolithic stratum. 

 Throughout Europe the break between the Pleistocene age 

 represented in the cave by the bones in the clay and the 

 Peoceedikos— Lit. & Phil. Soc— Tol. XI.— I^o. 2.— Session 1871-2. 



