ON THE EXAMINATION OF TWO CAVES NEAR TENBY. '211 



of depression." We are farther of opinion that at no geologically recent 

 time previous to that of onr clearing out of the cave can any very free 

 intercommunication have existed between these two portions of it, at least 

 at times when they were above the level of the sea ; for the traces, at least 

 those which are unmistakeable and unambiguous, of its habitation at one 

 time by man and at another by pleistocene animals, are confined to its north- 

 ern portion, which it is difficult to think they would have been if its two 

 portions had been in open communication with each other ; though the 

 north cave is intrinsically as at present, and must have been always, better 

 suited for the purpose in question. We have not found any evidence in 

 this cave of man's having been a contemporary of the extinct pleistocene 

 animals. The remains indeed of these animals themselves consist mainly 

 of comparatively small fragments, and are representative merely of much 

 larger quantities which were washed out of it by the sea in some later 

 occupancies of its interior, or may have been otherwise removed. 



There can be little doubt that, though man used the " north cave " for 

 purposes of habitation, the area above the south part of it was not used 

 •except for purposes of interment. Otherwise, more relics of the articles 

 for daily use in life would have been found in that segment. But we have 

 no evidence to show that the first use of the " north cave " for habitation 

 may not have been even long anterior in date to the first use of the other 

 area for interment. 



Nearly all the human bones, whether of the skull, limbs, or trunk, 

 which were found by us in this cave, came from the previously undisturbed 

 space in the " segment of depression ; " some few, however, were found 

 externally to the north entrance of the cave, and must, ex hypothesi above 

 stated, have been passed down the whole length of the slope constituted 

 by the " north cave." Nearly all, again, of the human skull-bones found 

 by Mr. Edward Laws (' Journal Anth. Institute,' Aug. 1877) were lying 

 close together, near the southern extremity of the north cave, where its 

 upward sloping floor reaches its summit and becomes continuous with 

 that of the "segment of depression." In other words, nearly all the human 

 bones found in this cave were in positions into which they might, as the 

 sections show, have been thrown or rolled if they had been lying on the 

 roof of the " segment of depression/' when that roof fell in, and, as the depth 

 from the present natural surface round the "segment of depression" down 

 to the red cave-earth at the bottom of it may be taken as being from 

 12 to 14 feet, we have here a fall sufficient to account at once for the frag- 

 mentary condition of the human and other bones found in this space, and 

 for the space over and within which they were distributed or dispersed. 

 Ex hypothesi, these bones would be showered down upon a watershed-like 

 line of demarcation between the "north cave" and the "segment of 

 depression," and scattered in either direction much as is the sand in an 

 inverted hour-glass. In some cases a few bones such as the upper cervical 

 vertebras and some of the cranial bones would retain their natural rela- 

 tions of apposition, especially at the circumference under the cave walls ; 

 in others they would be widely separated ; and the long bones would 

 in almost every case be broken into longer or shorter segments. This 

 was actually the state of the case ; a state not explicable on the hypothesis 

 of their having been introduced, as bones must so often be held to have 

 been, by water-carriage, to say nothing of the impossibility of the feeding- 

 ground, represented by the upper surface of the bank having been large 

 enough to furnish sufficient water for such flotation. 



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