406 Pre-Historic Mammalia Associated with Man. 



down into the cave. Subsequently we blasted a second 

 entrance. The first chamber was at least half full of broken 

 rocks, covered with a mortar-like mass of decomposing sta- 

 lagmite. Uuderneath them was a group of four skulls, one of 

 which belonged to the Bos lomjifrons, two others were those of 

 a species of the goat tribe, approaching more closely to the 

 Aegoceros Caucasica of Asia, than any other recent species in the 

 oval section of the horncores, in their parallelism to one ano- 

 ther, and their slight backward curvature. We have met with 

 a similar form in a refuse heap in Richmond in Yorkshire,* 

 and in the disturbed soil on which London stands, and M. 

 Lartet writes me that he has detected it in a cave in the 

 Pyrenees. In the absence, however, of the necessary mate- 

 rials for comparison from the museums of London, Oxford, 

 and Paris, I do not feel justified in proposing a new specific 

 name. The fourth skull belonged to the pig, and had a round 

 hole in the frontals rather larger than a florin, which had the 

 appearance of being made by human hands. 



The presence of the lower jaws with the skulls indicates 

 that they were deposited in the cavern while the ligaments 

 still bound them together. They were all more or less covered 

 with decaying stalagmite. The outer chamber was remarkable 

 for the absence of earth of any kind, except underneath the 

 hole in the roof, where there was a very little ; while the inner 

 one, running in the same slope, has its lower end entirely 

 blocked up by a fine red earth, deposited by a stream which 

 flows during heavy rains. Between the stones on the floor 

 were numerous bones and teeth of wolf, fox, mole, arvicola, 

 badger, bat, along, with a metacarpal of red-deer and the 

 remains of birds. How the animal remains were introduced, 

 for they exhibit no marks of gnawing, and there are no frag- 

 ments of charcoal in the cave, or any other traces of man, is 

 altogether a matter of conjecture : but the fact of finding the 

 skulls in one group, coupled with the presence of the hole in 

 the frontal of the pig, leads us to believe that they have been 

 introduced by the hand of man. The entrance was far too 

 small to admit of an ox falling into the cave by accident, and 

 scarcely large enough for a goat or deer to squeeze themselves 

 through ; had they been brought in by wolf or fox they would 

 have exhibited marks of teeth. 



In 1863 Mr. James Parker explored a cave in the lime- 

 stone cliffs at Uphill, near Weston-super-Mare, and obtained 

 human skulls and bones, along with rude pottery and charcoal. 

 I have determined the presence of the following animals : — 

 the wild cat, wolf, fox, badger, Bos longifrous, pig, red-deor, 

 dog, and water-rat. Most of the remains belong to young 

 * " Quarterly Geological Journal." November, 18G5. 



