76 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



quite a different world. The domestic animals — ox, sheep, dog, 

 and horse — disappear, and we are confronted by elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, hyaenas, mammoths, reindeer, and so forth. 



Thus in Britain and North-western Europe there appears 

 to have been no gradual passage from Palaeolithic into Neolithic 

 times. We know that the men of the Old Stone Age occupied 

 our continent along with many large pachyderms and carnivores, 

 and that a time came when all these animals, together with 

 Palaeolithic man, vanished from the European area, and were 

 abruptly succeeded by Neolithic man and the present indigenous 

 fauna. There is thus a gap or hiatus in the cave-history, — the 

 floor-accumulations contain apparently no record of the period 

 that intervened after the departure of Palaeolithic man and 

 before the advent of his Neolithic successor. But this remark- 

 able fact will come out more clearly as we further consider the 

 evidence. 



The fact that human relics are commingled in many caves 

 with the remains of extinct animals has long been known to 

 geologists. But for a number of years it was a disputed point 

 whether man had actually been contemporaneous with such 

 animals or not. And though several investigators, who had 

 made careful examinations of the cave-accumulations, stoutly 

 maintained that he had, yet geologists generally continued 

 sceptical and unbelieving. But after such caves as that at 

 Brixham (Torbay), and the still more famous cavern near Tor- 

 quay, called Kent's Hole, had been subjected to long and care- 

 ful examination under the auspices of the Eoyal and Geological 

 Societies, and the British Association, even the most sceptical 

 hammerer threw aside his doubts. But while giving all due 

 credit to the Exploration Committees for their admirable and 

 exhaustive work, we must not forget that the main result of 

 their labours has been merely to verify and confirm the conclu- 

 sions arrived at by the earlier investigators. It is needless to 

 say that those who have taken the most active share in cave- 

 exploring are the readiest to admit this ; and none more will- 

 ingly than Mr. Pengelly, who has personally superintended the 



