PALEOLITHIC MAN AT CRESWELL. 19 



more highly finished, some of them being of the well-known 

 lanceolate type of Solutre, and with these some carefully-made 

 bone weapons occurred. Nowhere, however, has more distinct 

 evidence been afforded than in the caves of Creswell, some 

 of the chief points of which we will now consider. Three of 

 these caves have been explored : the Pin Hole, the Robin 

 Hood Cave, and the Church Hole. That the floors of these 

 caves contained remains of the Pleistocene age became evident 

 to me in 1875. When I commenced the exploration, a very 

 few strokes of the pick in the Pin Hole and Robin Hood 

 caves revealed the rich nature of the contents of their floors. 

 The researches I then commenced were continued afterwards 

 in conjunction with Mr. Heath and Professor Boyd Dawkins. 

 The results of the exploration have been so fully detailed by 

 Professors G. Busk, Boyd Dawkins, and myself, in the Journal 

 of the Geological Society, and in other papers, that it will 

 suffice here to give a general sketch only of the main features 

 of the discoveries as bearing upon the history of primitive man. 

 The floors of the Creswell caves were found to consist of 

 several beds of sand and earth, the gradual accumulations of 

 a long series of ages, and the description of the floor of one 

 of the caves at its fullest development will show the nature 

 and mode of occurrence of the successive beds. 



Section of the Floor of the Robin Hood Caves. 



1. Surface soil — Modern and Roman remains. 



2. Stalagmitic breccia, with charcoal, worked .flints and bones. 



3. Cave earth, flint implements and bones. 



4. Mottled cave earth with ditto. 



5. Red sand, bones and quartzite implements. 



6. Whitish calcareous sand and limestone blocks, forming original floor of 



cave. 



Forming a total thickness of 8 or 9 feet, where all the beds were 

 present at their maximum development. 



In the Pin Hole the upper beds were wanting, with the ex- 

 ception of a thin layer of surface soil, and the floor consisted 

 of the red sand only, resting on the above-mentioned calcareous 

 bed, and in this cave traces of man's presence were almost 



