134 



NATURE 



[October 3, 1912 



Antiquity of Neolithic Man. 



The letter of Mr. J. Sinel, in Nature of September 

 19, on the submerged forest bed in Jersey, deals with 

 several questions of great interest in relation to the 

 submerged forest on the south-western coast of Wales. 

 I hope to publish shortly an account of this forest-bed 

 (so far as it is seen in Pembrokeshire) and the deposits 

 associated with it, but in the meantime I may state 

 that I have found worked flints — flakes and cores — 

 in two localities on the Pembrokeshire coast in posi- 

 tions which correspond with that of the stratum of 

 blue clay below the forest-bed at St. Heliers. These 

 flints were clearly worked by men who inhabited the 

 woodland, now submerged, before the trees fell into 

 decay and formed the peaty mass of trunks, branches, 

 leaves, &c., overlying the true root-bed of the "sub- 

 merged forest." One locality near Amroth, in Car- 

 marthen Bay, yielded cores and flakes in abundance ; 

 the circumstances indicate the existence of a chipping- 

 floor or implement-factory on this part of the sub- 

 merged land-surface, which now, during spring tides, 

 is covered by not less than 20 ft. of water. In the 

 patch of submerged forest recently exposed at Fresh- 

 water West, in southern Pembrokeshire (see Nature, 

 March 28, 1912), a few small flint implements were 

 also found. 



Both at Amroth and Freshwater West the flints 

 occurred below the peaty layer in a thin blue slime 

 or clayey silt, which rests in turn upon clayey rubble 

 largely composed of material derived from older super- 

 ficial deposits. There is evidence that the forest trees 

 in Pembrokeshire are rooted either in unquestionable 

 glacial Boulder Clay or in a clayey drift allied to the 

 glacial deposits. There appears, therefore, an in- 

 teresting agreement in the character of the substratum 

 of the submerged forest in Jersey and on the Pem- 

 brokeshire coast, and the agreement further extends 

 to the composition of the peat. All the plants (with 

 others) mentioned by Mr. Sinel occur in the peat near 

 .'\mroth and the remains of beetles are fairly common. 



A point of difi'erence, which may be more apparent 

 than real, between the two localities, is the occurrence, 

 according to Mr. Sinel, of blue "marine" clay below 

 the peat at St. Heliers. In Pembrokeshire the blue 

 slime, whence the flints were obtained, has vielded 

 no evidence of marine origin ; it appears rather to 

 resemble an old marsh silt which developed into swampy 

 soil, but it is quite possibly only the estuarine fringe 

 of a marine clay which is now wholly submerged. 

 The deposits, it may be, would be similar if compared 

 at corresponding levels. 



The geological horizon of the worked flints of the 

 Pembrokeshire submerged land-surface appears iden- 

 tical with that of the Neolithic implements from St. 

 Heliers. One of the most important questions that 

 arises is whether these implements are so distinctivelv 

 Neolithic in character as to exclude the possibility that 

 they may belong to an earlier period. Two imple- 

 ments from the Pembrokeshire submerged forest were 

 submitted to Mr. Reginald Smith, 'of the British 

 Museurn, but they were not found sufficiently char- 

 acteristic in form to be dated according to modern 

 detailed classifications of implements. 



The term " Neolithic " is frequently applied to any 

 surface finds of implements which are unabraded and 

 not obviously of the familiar heavv Pateolithic forms. 

 But while on the one hand many so-called " Neolithic" 

 implements belong to the later prehistoric ages of 

 Bronze and Iron, on the other hand some surface 

 sites yield implements closelv resembling Late Palaeo- 

 lithic types. This is so, for instance, in South Pem- 

 brokeshire, where recently I have obtained from 

 several chipping-floors on the high ground bordering 

 the coast a number of small implements, amongst 

 NO. 2240, VOL. go] 



which Mr. Reginald Smith has recognised several 

 scrapers, probably of Late Palaeolithic (Aurignacian) 

 types. But some of these early forms occur on sites 

 which have yielded also typical Neolithic tools (with 

 ground edges) and pottery, and, moreover, it is not 

 yet possible to show that they are older than the sub- 

 merged forest. 



I join with Mr. Sinel in expressing the hope that 

 other records of implements from the submerged forest 

 may be obtained, but further I should like to suggest 

 that it is of great importance that all finds should be 

 compared with the series of implements in our 

 national collections in order that their age may be 

 definitely ascertained. A. L. Leach. 



Giltar, Shooter's Hill, London. 



Human Jaw of Palaeolithic Age from Kent's Cavern. 



Prof. A. Keith, in discussing the paper read at 

 Dundee by Prof. Boyd Dawkins for Dr. Duckworth 

 on the fragment of a jaw of Palaeolithic age from 

 Kent's Cavern, is reported by the Times to have 

 said that " the whole thing was ridiculous and was not 

 even scientific, for the specimen had not been shown 

 in the position in which it had been found." 



The specimen in question is in the museum of the 

 Torquay Natural History Society. Its position has 

 been defined in the late Mr. W. Pengelly's reports to 

 the British Association, and more particularly in his 

 Cavern Note-book and Diary, which are at present, 

 with all his other records of Kent's Cavern, in the 

 possession of his elder daughter, Mrs. Louis Maxwell. 



By the kindness of Mrs. Maxwell, I have had the 

 opportunity of examining the diary, and have also 

 had a look at the specimen now in its place in the 

 m.useum. The actual record of the fragment is as 

 follows: — "Thursday, January 3 [1867]. To the 

 Cavern. The objects found to-day were as below : — • 



"No. 1930. In granular stalagmite. 7th Parallel, 

 including part of a Human Jaw, a Flint Flake, a well- 

 rolled Flint pebble from which a chip had been 

 broken." 



In the British Association's Third Cavern Report, 

 1867, the further fact is stated, viz. that the object was 

 found '"about 30 feet from the Northern Entrance to 

 the Cavern and deeply imbedded in Granular Stalag- 

 mite 20 inches thick." 



The position of the jaw- in the cavern is thus ascer- 

 tainable to a few feet, and its depth in the stalag- 

 mite to a few inches. But it tells its own tale. It is 

 practically a specimen of the characteristic granular 

 stalagmite, which seems to have been of Paleolithic 

 age throughout. Pengellv mentions (Fifth Report) 

 how cave bear, hyeena, and rhinoceros were met with 

 not only in the granular stalagmitic floor, but quite 

 at its upper surface (Trans. Devon .^ssoc, v., xvi., 

 p. 250). Indeed, Pengelly records the occurrence of a 

 tooth of rhinoceros found in another part of the cavern 

 (No. 4oqo, found May 27, 1869), " which was not only 

 in quite the upper part of the stalagmite, but instead 

 of being completely covered, projected above its sur- 

 face" (Trans Devon Assoc, vol. xvi., p. 207). 



Having known Kent's Cavern long before the 

 British Association exploration, and having been in- 

 structed therein by Mr. Pengelly for cave research 

 els'ewhere, I trust you will permit me to bear this 

 testimony to the accuracy and detail of Pengelly's 

 Kent's Cavern records. 



I may mention that in 1884 Pengelly collected the 

 whole of the sixteen Kent's Cavern reports in a single 

 paper to the Devonshire Association. Not onlv is this 

 paper much more convenient for reference than the 

 reports scattered over sixteen years of the British 

 Association, but occasional notes review the early 



