100 FLINT KNIVES IN BRIXHAM CAVE. chap. vi. 



Eleplias primigenius, or mammoth; Rhinoceros tichorhinus ; 

 Ursus spelceus; Hyama spelcea; Felis spelcea, or the eave-lion; 

 Cervus Tarandus, or the reindeer; a species of horse, ox, and 

 several rodents, and others not yet determined. 



No human bones were obtained anywhere during these 

 excavations, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest 

 part of the bone-earth; and one of the most perfect lay at 

 the depth of thirteen feet fx'om the surface, and was covered 

 with bone-earth of that thickness. From a similar position 

 was taken one of those siliceous nuclei, or cores, from which 

 flint flakes had been struck off on every side. Neglecting 

 the less pei'fect specimens, some of which were met with 

 even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen knives, recognized 

 as artificially formed by the most experienced antiquaries, 

 were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from near the 

 bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the associated 

 mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of antiquity, 

 as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, similar 

 tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date 

 to the era of the introduction of bronze. But the anteriority 

 of those at Brixham to the extinct animals is demonstrated 

 not only by the occurrence at one point in overlying stalag- 

 mite of the bone of a cave-bear, but also by the discovery at 

 the same level in the bone-earth, and in close proximity to a 

 very perfect flint tool, of the entire left hind-leg of a cave- 

 bear. This specimen, which was shown me by Dr. Falconer 

 and Mr. Pengelly, was exhumed from the earthy deposit in 

 the reindeer gallery, near its junction with the flint-knife 

 gallery, at the distance of about sixty-five feet from the 

 main entrance. The mass of earth containing it was re- 

 moved entire, and the matrix cleared away carefully by Dr. 

 Falconer in the presence of JMr. Pengelly. Every bone was 

 in its natural place, the femur, tibia, fibula, ankle-bone, or 

 astragalus, all in juxta-position. Even the patella or de- 



