ON CUTS ON BONE IN REMOTE AGUS. 221 
shells worn, It is a question of evidence. It is not the fact of 
there being a hole, or the fact of not having found the string, which 
I dwell upon as evidence for or against; but you must in each case 
ask what is the evidence upon which you rely. Is it juxtaposition ? 
Is it the selection of the place where the hole is bored? Is it the 
general association and arrangement of the specimens ? 
There is no doubt the bones carved by man are commonly found 
together with other remains proving the antiquity of the deposit. 
These scored things are found right down in the deposit. You will 
find it clearly proved in this book, Reliquice Aquitanice, with full 
illustrations, a large number of which, by the courtesy of my friend, 
Professor Rupert Jones, I have been able to hand round, and you 
will find here a full description of the age and origin of the caves 
themselves, a most important point in such a question. If the cave 
or gravel terrace is high up and you refer it to the action of a river 
which is now far down in the valley below, that requires explana- 
tion, and you must consider probable length of time required for 
such geological changes. The paper referred to was one I had the 
honour of reading before this society some time ago.* The wood 
which I described was from a place called Diirnten, on a terrace 
which runs round the Lake of Zurich, on which there were in some 
places old lacustrine formations, ancient lake beds appearing to be 
overlapped by the later glacial deposits of the Alps. It was out of 
those that the matted and twisted twigs and pointed sticks were 
procured, but I showed that they could be accounted for by natural 
agencies. Then Mr. Kinahan’s observations upon the antlers of the 
Irish elk impressing the bone in the peat, of course, are very 
important. And I have myself observed similar cases among bones 
found in Pleistocene gravels. I should carry the antiquity of man 
back to a very, very remote period. If you ask me what period in 
years, I would not be so rash as to say. I give no numerical 
estimate, but certainly he goes back to the time when the geo- 
graphical conditions of this part of the country were entirely 
different.. Some of our friends say they have found traces quite 
satisfactory to them in beds dating just before the glacial period. 
All I ask them to do is to give me a better proof than hitherto 
before I can admit that evidence,—not that I disbelieve we may 
* March 8, 1879. See Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. xiii. 
p. 321. 
