ON THE EXAMINATION OF TTYO CAVES NEAR TENBY. 213 



the opening there stands a mass of stalagmitic breccia three feet in height, 

 And debris may very probably have been piled up in this place to a still 

 higher level than this. A fissure in the junction of the two parts of the 

 cave which still exists may have furnished an easy route for their descent. 

 It is of importance to note that the two portions of the cave appear to 

 have differed in function both in earlier and later times. The bones of 

 the pleistocene animals found in this cave were limited strictly to the 

 northern portion of it ; the same may be said of the ashes, and, with the 

 exception constituted by a single worked flint, of the implements of man's 

 manufacture ; and in this portion of the cave, whilst a very large quantity 

 of the bones of domesticated animals was found, only a few human bones 

 were discovered, the number of which is not greater than what the 

 scattering northwards and downwards which the falling in of the roof 

 of the depression segment, subsequently eked out by occasional causes 

 such as the interference of men or of burrowing animals, foxes, 

 rabbits, and badgers would adequately account for. On the other hand, 

 whilst the majority of all the human bones were discovered within or imme- 

 diately adjacent to the periphery of the segment of depression, the bones 

 of domesticated animals found within it were not more in number than 

 might be accounted for by the hypothesis of their having been th^ relics 

 of funeral feasts, a view which their being intermingled with the human 

 remains, as they would be if accumulated at successive interments, tends 

 to confirm. 



It may, indeed, be considered a matter for surprise that any pleistocene 

 bones or teeth were left in the cave when we consider its level and the 

 slopes of its floor ; but the few that were left, and its possible exposure 

 to the denuding influences of a pluvial period, it may be seen, might be 

 preserved from being washed out by lodgment in the pockets and an- 

 fractuosities along the sinuous walls of the cave. 



With reference to the period at which the owners of the human re- 

 mains may be supposed to have lived, whether in the Stone, the Bronze, 

 or the Iron age, the existence of the sunken forest at Westward Ho, on 

 the opposite side of the Bristol Channel, forbids us to forget that it may 

 have very well been some time later than the commencement of the 

 neolithic period when the sea last encroached upon and overwhelmed 

 areas in this district tenanted by stone-using men. And as such an 

 invasion would have left the contents of this cave in a very different 

 state from that in which we found them, even though no traces of 

 raetal of any kind were found inside any part of this cave, we must 

 not suppose that we are justified in placing the date either of the men 

 buried above or of the men who inhabited this cave far back in that 

 period. But further. Two of the pieces of pottery found, either inside or 

 in the talus just outside the north cave, appeared to be of the same style 

 as one which was found in a round barrow, containing a cremation urn 

 and burnt bones and flint chips, on the Ridgeway Hill, immediately 

 above the Longbury Bank ; and this may be supposed to suggest, though 

 it by no means proves, that the Longbury Bank cave-inhabitants were, 

 like the Ridgeway tumulus builders, of the Bronze age. Thirdly, in the 

 talus outside the north entrance, a spindle whorl made out of the bottom 

 of a jar of Samian ware, like two found in Dowker Bottom cave, in 

 Yorkshire (see Professor Boyd Dawkins's ' Cave Hunting,' p. 113), was 

 found ; and half of a saucer-shaped vessel of the same material showing 

 signs of ornamentation was found on the surface of the area of depres- 



