OF THE CAVES OF CRESWELL CRAGS. 609 



again, the value of the evidence turns on the point as to whether 

 the strata inside the caves are Glacial deposits in situ or have been 

 derived from their denudation. Both Prof. Hughes and myself 

 agree in holding the latter view. This may have happened at any 

 period in the Pleistocene age subsequent to their deposition, by the 

 waves of the sea. It seems therefore to me altogether premature to 

 build up any hypothesis on the foundations offered by the discoveries 

 made hitherto in these two sets of caves as to the relation of their 

 contents to the Glacial period. The open caves were undoubtedly 

 inhabited by the wild animals before the Glacial age ; but I do not 

 know of any one cave in any part of Europe which has been proved 

 to contain Preglacial or Interglacial mammalia. 



B. No proof of Pre- or Interglacial Cave- Man in Britain. 



The question naturally arises, When did Man first appear 

 the cave-fauna? Messrs. Tiddeman and James Geikie* find an 

 answer in the discovery of " a human bone or fibula," which " was 

 certainly found beneath Glacial clay in the Victoria Cave." That 

 this clay is Glacial is, as I have shown above, a matter of opinion ; 

 nor am I by any means satisfied that the fragment of shaft without 

 articulations of so variable a bone is really beyond all doubt human. 

 When first discovered it seemed to me too equivocal a specimen to 

 be identified with absolute certainty ; and therefore it was omitted 

 from my report to the British Association in 1873. Prof. Busk 

 (Anthropological Journ. iii. p. 392) also, to whom it was submitted, 

 considered it equivocal, then " was induced to think that it might 

 be elephantine," and ultimately concluded, from its correspondence 

 with an abnormal and unique recent human fibula, that it is human. 

 Since this identification the numerous Bear's fibulas from Windy 

 Knoll which I have examined seem to me to throw additional light 

 on the fragment, and to render it very probable that it is ursine. I 

 am not prepared to say that I can identify it with any one ursine 

 fibula ; but, taking into account the great difference in size and form 

 in that bone, and the fact that one fossil Bear's fibula differs from 

 another as much as or more than this one does, it may probably be 

 referred to one or another of the fossil Bears U. spelaius or U. ferox, 

 of which the remains found in the Victoria Cave are of gigantic size. 

 On this point I would remark that a fragment of ursine fibula, from 

 the cavern of Lozere, in the British Museum very nearly comes up 

 to that of Victoria in size, measuring in circumference 2*0 inches as 

 compared with 2-2 of the latter. The Victoria fibula differs far 



* Tiddeman, ' Nature,' 1876, p. 505 ; see also Brit. Assoc. Eep. 1875, p. 173: — 

 " In the opinion of yonr reporter, the Craven savage, who lived before the 

 Great Ice-sheet and before the Great Submergence, may form another of the 

 many strong ties which bind together the sciences of Geology and Anthropology." 

 Geikie, 'Ice- Age,' 1st edit. p. 510 : — " The interest of this discovery (i. e. of the 

 fibula) consists in the fact that the deposit from which the bone was obtained 

 is overlaid, as Mr. Tiddeman has shown, ' by a bed of stiff Glacial clay con- 

 taining ice-scratched boulders.' Here then is direct proof that Man lived in 

 England prior to the last Interglacial period." 



