210 ; ' REPORT— 1878. 



conditioned banks in the neighbourhood of Pembroke. Of the two caves 

 examined by us, one contained no objects of special interest, and the other 

 had been previously investigated by other explorers, viz., the Rev. H. H. 

 Win wood, of Bath (see ' Cave Hunting,' by Professor Boyd Dawkins, 

 E.R.S., p. 133, and ' British Mammalia,' Memoirs Pakeont. Society, 1878, 

 p. xxii.), and Mr. Edward Laws, of Tenby (see ' Journal of Anthropo- 

 logical Institute,' August 1877). A very considerable segment, however, of 

 this latter cave had been left unexamined, and it has been by the ex- 

 amination of this undisturbed portion of the cave, and by the clearing 

 out and investigation of the contents of all the rest of the cave, and 

 comparison of them with the specimens previously obtained and most 

 liberally put at our disposal for this purpose by Mr. Edward Laws, that 

 we have been able to come to the following results. 



The cave in question, known in the neighbourhood as " Little Hoyle," 

 in contradistinction to a much larger cavern close by, known as " Hoyle's 

 Mouth," may be divided roughly into two main segments, one beginning 

 with a large mouth opening northwards, and extending from that mouth in 

 a direction S. and with a sharp slope upwards up to a point distant 25 feet 

 from the mouth ; the other of about 16 feet in length, dipping downwards 

 from that point in a S.E. direction, to communicate by a narrow hole with 

 a wide cave rnouth on the S.E. side of the bank in which bones of man, 

 bear, and ox had been previously found by Mr. Laws. This second 

 segment of the cave had underlaid one of those " initiatory areas of 

 depression," to use the phraseology of the late Professor Phillips (see 

 ' Report of British Association,' Bath Meeting, 1864, p. 63-64), which 

 ultimately lead, and here had led, to the breaking-in of the cave's roof, 

 and which might here be spoken of in the phraseology of the county as a 

 " sink " or " soaker." It was filled up to a depth of nearly 10 feet with 

 fragments of limestone, and made earth containing bones of men, domestic 

 animals, foxes, rabbits, and oyster and limpet shells. "We may speak of 

 it hereafter as the " segment of depression." 



This " segment of depression " had been scarcely touched by any ex- 

 plorers previously to ourselves. The longer segment of the cave, opening 

 northwards, may be spoken of as the " north cave ; " and a comparatively 

 low diverticulum 16 feet long, branching off from it to the east, and 

 widening from 3 feet to 10 feet for about 9 feet of its length, we may 

 speak of as the " east chamber." This last we found by means of smoke 

 to communicate through a narrow flue, with a small flat surface near the 

 top of bank, which was potentially an "area of depression," but had 

 actually been a fox-earth. Having in mind the levels and communications 

 of the several parts of this cave, and considering in connection with them 

 the relative proportions and conditions in which the contents of the 

 cave, viz., (1) breccia and stalagmite, (2) red cave-earth, (3) black earth 

 mixed with angular stones, (4) worked flint and other implements, 

 (5) fragments of pottery, (6) ashes, and (7) bones of men and of beasts, 

 pleistocene and other, found in the different segments of the cave, we are, 

 on the whole, of opinion that though the main or north portion of the 

 cave was used by man for purposes of habitation in times at least as 

 early as those in which the brown bear (Ursus Arctos) was still living in 

 this country, the part of the cave in which the greater part of human 

 remains were found, viz., the "segment of depression," has come to con- 

 tain those remains simply by the falling in of its roof, and of a burial- 

 place which had existed over it whilst it was yet only an " initiatory area 



