304 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



floor of this material had once existed, only to be broken up and dispersed. But it 

 has not been possible to trace its original position more exactly. 



The lower Stalagmite floor (B) is itself discontinuous, having been in parts broken 

 up and its place taken by a firmly cemented breccia of angular limestones of no great 

 size, presumably the agents of destruction. 



At 16 ft. west of the bottleneck, at a point where the Stalagmite floor (B) thins 

 out from nearly 1 ft. thick to no more than 2 in., a mass of heavy rock had fallen upon 

 and destroyed it, and then had itself been cemented into a strong breccia by the 

 continued formation of stalagmite. To the base of this breccia slabs of the broken 

 stalagmite adhere. This heavy breccia is known to continue westwards for another 

 10 ft. at least, and over this distance its lower surface appears as an arch, covering an 

 empty space, from which all deposits have been denuded and whose floor appears 

 to be the natural rock of the cave, descending steeply into a narrow fissure. 



But beneath the Stalagmite floor (B), where still intact, and beneath the breccia of 

 smaller stones which sometimes takes its place, and from the bottle-neck to a point 

 16 ft. to the west, there is no empty space, but the deposit of cave-earth continues 

 downwards. It is in this area that the cave-earth has been excavated to a total depth 

 of over 20 ft. below datum line. 



The geological sequence of events appears to have been as follows : — 



1. Deposition of 12 ft. (or more) of cave-earth, with large fallen stones. 



2. Formation of a Stalagmite floor (B). 



3. Partial destruction of this floor b} r a fall of rock. 



4. Continued formation of stalagmite, brecciating the fallen material. 



5. Torrential flooding from the direction of the N.E. Gallery, penetrating beneath 

 the Stalagmite floor (B) at the point of fracture, and ravining and carrying away the 

 cave-earth from beneath the heavy breccia. 



6. Resumption of the deposit of cave-earth. 



7. Formation of a second stalagmite floor. 



8. Destruction and dispersal of that by further floods. 



9. Resumed deposition of cave-earth. 



10. Occupation of the chamber by man with the remains of hearths (the Black 

 Band) in the final Magdalenian period. 



11. Formation of a third and final Stalagmite floor (A). 



The flint implements discovered this season have been few in number. They do 

 not differ from those found last year. We have been slowly approaching the con- 

 clusion that the industry represented may be Upper Aurignacian. This view is based 

 mainly on the high proportion of simple blades. It has since been supported by very 

 high authority. But the position is difficult. Other experts have pronounced the 

 same series to be of Middle Aurignacian provenance. Evidently the series is not 

 very typical — a remark which may perhaps apply equally to a small series of scrapers 

 and a bone pin found in 1866 at 4 ft. below datum, which has also been referred to 

 the Middle Aurignacian. On the whole there does not appear to be sufficient material 

 of good type for satisfactory classification, and it may be wise to regard the imple- 

 ments as Aurignacian without further qualification as to phase until further work 

 may produce datable examples. 



It is evident that the geological conditions under which the deposits were formed 

 render highly possible a mixture of artefacts from more than one period. In the 

 course of the season's work only one or two charred bones have come to light. We 

 have not discovered the hearth from which it was derived. The high proportion of 

 broken or frustrated blades suggests the debris of a workshop. But the position of 

 this workshop is as yet unknown. The most prolific level (7 ft. 3 in.) has yielded no 

 more than one flint specimen of any kind to 6 square feet of superficial area — hardly 

 sufficient to denote a Palaeolithic floor of occupation. Further exploration in the 

 direction from which the deposits entered the cavern may result in the finding of more 

 typical flints. But the abundance of teeth and bones of hyena at nearly every level, 

 and of bones gnawed by that animal, suggests that human occupation of this part 

 of the cave must have been temporary and occasional at best. 



One may tentatively suggest that man may have been a summer visitor to the 

 neighbourhood, camping out on the plateau above the cave, quite possibly in more 

 than one phase of Aurignacian times, and that floods originating from the melting 

 of heavy snows, on two occasions at least, ravined his deserted camping grounds, 

 sweeping into the cavern, through swallow holes, the artefacts of different periods and 

 depositing them side by side, or even in apparently inverse chronological order. 



