348 HUMAN REMAINS IN GOUGH's CAVERN, CHEDDAR. [Aug. I904, 



skull older in type than Neolithic, and the stature inferred by 

 the Author was very near the normal stature of the Neolithic 

 Iberic population of this country. Statements in regard to the 

 antiquity of man must always be scrutinized with the narrowest 

 possible criticism. 



Mr. W. Dale said that, as a collector of flint-implements for 

 many years, he naturally gravitated towards those on the table as 

 soon as he entered the room, and at once made up his mind that 

 they belonged to the Neolithic Age, and late in that period. Indeed 

 some of the long and skilfully-struck flakes were exactly similar ro 

 those often found associated with relics of the Bronze Age. 



The Author thanked the speakers for their criticism of 'his paper. 

 In reply to Mr. Win wood, he referred to the mass 'of calcareous 

 deposit of travertine-like nature, which lay on the table, and which 

 the Author had himself suggested to have been more rapidly -formed 

 than the lower true stalagmite. The flints might be Neolithic 

 in appearance, although they were certainly not surface-flints, but 

 found in the cave-earth, of whatever age that might be. Replying 

 to Prof. Boyd Dawkins, the Author agreed that platycnemism was 

 not a characteristic of race, and that well-struck flints might be of 

 late Neolithic Age ; but, referring again to their presence in the 

 cave-earth under a stalagmitic floor, and to their close resemblance 

 to the blades and borers found under the same conditions and 

 classed by Mortillet and others as Magdalenien, he thought that his 

 suggestion of a late Palaeolithic or very early Neolithic date for 

 these flints was more agreeable to the facts : and,, if that were so, 

 the human remains found with them must be of the same age. 



