Rev. 0. Fkher — Works of Prehutoric Man. 



219 



whicli can hardly be explained by any natural process. This trench, 

 in my opinion, was excavated by man in the later Pliocene age as 

 a pitfall to catch elephants ; and, if so, it proves that he was already 

 an intelligent and social being, because no single hand could have 

 accomplished so great a work. 



4. Excepting stone the most enduring substance employed by 

 primeval man was bone, and the instance of the use of this material 

 that first came under my observation was the cut rib bone, supposed 

 of an elephant, found by Blake in the gravel of Barnwell near 

 Cambridge, and described by the late Professor H. G. Seeley.' This 

 bone was not sawn, but notched round and then broken. The gravel 

 at this locality contains ElepJias antiqims and the southern shell Cyrena 

 jiuminalis. 



Fig. 2. Base of shed antler of red deer {Cervtis elaphus) from Barrington. 

 Circumference above burr, 9 inches. Antlers partly sawn and then broken off. 



5. The terrace of gravel at Barrington,^ which is about seven miles 

 from Barnwell higher up the drainage system, has been extensively 

 excavated, and has yielded many well-preserved mammalian remains, 

 of which a large number are in the Sedgwick Museum at Cambridge. 

 The species of elephant is J^. aniiquus, but Cyrena jiuminalis does not 

 occur. Several bases of deer's antlers have been found here, from 

 which the branches and tines have been sawn off. One of these in 

 the collection of the Kev. E. Conybeare is now figured (Fig. 2). This 

 was a shed horn, but some of the bases have portions of the skull 

 attached, which shows that the animals had probably been killed. 

 In the Geologistiox 1861 ^ I have described and figured such a specimen, 

 which evidently had been chopped off the skull, the marks of chopping 



^ Q.J.G.S., vol. xxii, p. 470. 



* See Professor Hughes, Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxii, pt. v, 1911. 



^ Geologist, vol. iv, pp. 352-4, pi. ix, 1861. 



