PALEOLITHIC MAN AT CRESWELL. 2 J 



the German Ocean, and wandered as far north as the borders 

 of Yorkshire ; whether they went beyond this we have as yet 

 no proof, as far as I am aware. 



Besides the various implements found in the caves, numerous 

 traces of charcoal occurred in the breccia and in the cave-earth, 

 and some fragments of ruddle were also met with ; and it is 

 thus not improbable that the Palaeolithic hunter was not alto- 

 gether insensible to the charms of personal adornment. A piece 

 of amber found in the Robin Hood cave may have been 

 treasured as a charm or curiosity, but is interesting as affording 

 an incidental proof of the migration of these men from the 

 south-east. The principal food of these hunters was probably 

 the flesh of the horse, reindeer, and hare. 



The discoveries that have now been detailed show us that 

 the Palaeolithic age of man was one of lengthened duration, 

 with clearly marked periods ; the earliest, that in which man 

 was a mere savage, in the very lowest state of culture, witli 

 such tools only as he could fashion from the nearest pebbles. 

 We next find him making use of flint, and gradually improving 

 in the power of adapting it to varied purposes, whilst bone 

 and other materials were also turned to account. The men 

 who used these more perfectly formed implements must have 

 been in a higher state of civilization than those who had but 

 a broken pebble; and the discoveries in the Creswell caves, 

 where the more finished type of implements has been found 

 above the ruder in undisturbed beds, show that the more 

 civilized man has succeeded and replaced the earlier savage 

 race, or else that this latter, in the course of ages, improved 

 in the arts of tool-making, and learnt, not only to shape the 

 flint more elaborately, but also to make use of bone for domestic 

 and other purposes. Of the yet more highly-civilized men of 

 the Neolithic age, we have no trace at Creswell ; a long 

 blank seems to intervene between the occupation of its caves 

 by Palaeolithic man and the dawn of history. Passing to the 

 layer of soil above the breccia we are carried at once to as 

 late a period as the 5th or 6th century of our present era. 

 The presence of a few bronze fibulae, some pottery, a sculptured 



