Pre-Historic Mammalia Associated with Man. 405 



works, a similar deposit of bones was discovered in the begin- 

 ning of the year 1867. I fonnd on examination that large 

 oaken piles had been driven into the gravel which anciently- 

 formed the bottom of the Thames, and that a quantity of 

 brushwood, principally of willow, had been pressed in between 

 them. On the top was a large quantity of bones, broken more 

 or less for food, and belonging principally to Bos longifrons. 

 The whole was covered with alluvium from four to five feet in 

 thickness. It is very probable in this case that the piles are 

 the remains of dwellings somewhat similar to those in the 

 Swiss lakes. There were, however, no fragments of pottery 

 and no implements, the only human remains being some of the 

 long bones. 



We will now pass on to the consideration of the pre-historic 

 caverns in Britain which have afforded traces of the abode of 

 man. In 1859 I explored a small cave at the head of Cheddar 

 pass in Somersetshire. The mammalia found in it consisted of 

 the wolf, fox, badger, wild boar, goat, roebuck, Bos longifrons, 

 and horse. A human skull, also from this cave, is preserved 

 in the Oxford Museum, which is very well developed, and may 

 have belonged to a person of considerable capacity. During 

 the exploration of caverns in Somersetshire by Mr. Sanford 

 and myself, in 1863,* a second cavern of pre-historic age came 

 before our notice, also in the mountain limestone of the Men- 

 dip range in Burrington Combe, about twelve miles from 

 Bristol. It was situated high up in the ravine, and was very 

 nearly blocked up with earth mingled with charcoal. It con- 

 tained a large quantity of the remains of Bos longifrons, red- 

 deer, goat, wolf, fox, badger, rabbit, and hare. In the lower 

 portion of the cave we disinterred fragments of a rude urn of 

 the coarsest black ware, devoid of ornament, and with the rim 

 turned at right angles, together with a piece of bent iron, 

 which more closely resembles those found strengthening the 

 angles of wooden chests in Roman graves on the banks of the 

 Somme than anything else we have seen. The accumulation 

 of bones and charcoal prove that the cave was inhabited by 

 man for some considerable time. The interment is clearly of a 

 later date than the occupation, because it is made in the mass 

 of earth, bones, and charcoal which resulted from the latter. 

 The interval between the two is of doubtful length. In the 

 same year we explored another cavern in the same ravine, 

 which consisted of two large chambers connected together by 

 two passages not more than a few inches high. The natural 

 entrance, but a little larger than a fox- hole, was in the roof of 

 the first chamber, and through this we had to let ourselves 



* " Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History 

 Society." 1864. 



