PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 67 



character* In the peat-bed at Sharpness, described by 

 Mr Lucy,t a head of Cervus Elephas was found the antlers 

 Tf which had, in the opinion of Professor Church, been 

 cut off by some rude instrument. Mr Chas Upton has 

 also found in a gravel pit at the mouth of the Stonehouse 

 valley a reindeer antler bearing marks of having been cu 

 with a sharp instrument. Diligent search and careful 

 observation may add to our k-wledge o primmve 

 Cotteswold men; but there can be httle doubt that the 

 plateau was occupied by men who were contemporaneous 

 with those whose remains are found in gravel beds in the 

 valleys of the Somme and the Thames-men who, as 

 Professor Boyd Dawkins says, hunted the reindeer, bison, 

 woolly rhinoceros, and horse, and who were m the same 

 rude state of civihsation as "the Patohthic man who 

 "hunted the extinct hippopotamus in the forests o 

 "India- who wandered over Palestine and the valley ot 

 "the Nile- who hunted the wild boar and stag, the 

 "mammoth, and probably the pigmy rhinoceros in the 

 " Mediterranean," and in whose time the Enghsh Channel 

 had not been formed, and the North Sea did not exist. 



THE CAVE PERIOD 



Of the existence upon the Cotteswolds of men of the 

 C-xve period there is no evidence whatever. And looking 

 to the great changes in the configuration of the country 

 that have taken place since their time, it is not hkely that 

 any trustworthy testimony will ever be forthcoming. Ihe 

 late Rev W. S. Symonds (a distinguished member of our 

 Club) estimated that since the reUcs of Cave men were 



* In "A Slight History of Flint Implements, with especial reference to our own 

 ,na .d cent .r;:i" (Cottes'ciuh Proc. Vol. x.. p. ..) Mr ^-^y ;=-— ;;: ^--i" 

 differeLes between Palaeolithic and Neolithic flint implements, and suggests locaht.es 

 this county where the former may be found. 



-j- Ibid, Vol. vi., p. 113- 



E2 



