262 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



similarly preserved in stalagmite to tell us something about 

 the animal population of Europe in past ages. 



Other caves are, however, even more interesting than these, 

 since they contain the " dust-heaps " or " kitchen-middens " 

 (Fig. 52), not of animals, but of men. The cave at Carriga- 

 gower, in the county of Cork, for instance, shows us that it 

 was inhabited in ancient times by people who lived to a 

 large extent on beef, mutton, and pork, but had no more 

 idea than the hyaenas of keeping their dust-heaps outside 

 their houses. 



They ate their food and threw the bones down on the 

 mud floor, perhaps for their cats and dogs, whose remains 

 are also found, and they stabled their horses in the cave 

 with themselves. Sometimes they caught hares and rabbits, 

 and they fed largely upon mollusks, especially limpets, 

 periwinkles, and garden snails, whose shells are found in 

 great numbers. The earlier inhabitants of the cave had 

 stones for hammers and flint flakes for knives, but they 

 were followed by others who were more civilised and 

 possessed iron knives, an iron chisel, and a nail, and must 

 have cultivated some sort of grain, since the upper stone of 

 a quern or hand-mill has been discovered. 



In Denmark there are old dust-heaps from three to 

 ten feet high, and from 100 to i.ooo feet long, which 

 contain implements of stone, horn, bone, and wood, frag- 

 ments of rude pottery, charcoal, cinders, and the bones of 

 many animals, some of which, such as the beaver, do not 

 now live there. 



On the coast of Peru, and a few miles inland, there are 

 shell-heaps more than 180 feet high and above 300 in 



