PLEISTOCENE CAVE-DEPOSITS. 75 



however, that some vestiges of these may yet be detected, when 

 some of the larger caves have been exhaustively explored. 



The floor- accumulations present in most cases very much 

 the same kind of phenomena. Lying at the immediate surface 

 are usually found relics of modern and archaic times — tools, 

 implements, and ornaments of iron, bronze, or polished stone ; 

 and with these are often associated remains of ox, deer, sheep, 

 dog, horse, and other animals that are still indigenous to Europe. 

 Such modern and archaic relics and remains frequently rest 

 upon an undisturbed pavement of stalagmite, underneath which 

 again often occurs a variable thickness of earth, more or less 

 abundantly charged with the bones, teeth, and horns of extinct 

 or no longer indigenous mammals, and now and again yielding 

 Palaeolithic implements in larger or smaller numbers. Occa- 

 sionally the floor-deposits underlying the modern superficial 

 layer may consist of a vertical succession of half-a-dozen different 

 beds, lying perfectly undisturbed, one above another ; in all of 

 which Palaeolithic implements and remains of the extinct mam- 

 malia may be found. When a cave is completely filled up, the 

 upper or more modern layer is often wanting. Sometimes the 

 only deposit covering the floor of a cave consists of a rude breccia 

 of limestone and earth, disseminated through which relics and 

 remains of the Old Stone Age may be detected. But in each 

 and every case where Neolithic, Bronze, or Iron implements are 

 present they invariably occur at the very surface. It is true 

 that now and again the cave-deposits have been disturbed in 

 Neolithic and more recent times, and relics belonging to different 

 periods have thus got mixed. But such cases are not so common 

 as one might have expected, and with the wider experience we 

 have now gained, they are always more or less easily detected. 

 When the layers show no trace of disturbance the Palaeolithic 

 deposits invariably occur underneath those of Neolithic and later 

 times, and not only so, but the one set of deposits is sharply 

 marked off from the other. When we clear away the superficial 

 layer with its Neolithic and more modern relics, and dig into 

 the underlying Palaeolithic deposits, we pass, as it were, into 



