408 Pre-Historic Mammalia Associated with Man. 



I have chosen these caverns as representing the pre-historic 

 fauna of Great Britain. I might have quoted others, such as 

 Kent's Hole, which, having been open during pleistocene 

 and pre-historic times, contains the animals that were then 

 alive, the former at a lower level than the latter ; or the Pavi- 

 land Cave, described by Dr. Buckland, in which the remains of 

 both periods were mixed. I have., however, given a sufficient 

 number of examples to prove how far the pre-historic 

 differed from the post-glacial fauna. These pre-historic 

 mammalia, associated with the remains of man, are also found 

 along with others in the peat-bogs, so that by putting the two 

 groups together we can form an adequate idea of the entire 

 group of animals that inhabited Britain from the disappearance 

 of the post-glacial mammals down to the time of the Roman 

 invasion. 



The correspondence of the animals found with man with 

 those taken from the peat-bog and alluvium, and from certain 

 of the more modern caverns, proves that geologically they 

 belong to the same pre-historic epoch. The cave-bear, cave- 

 lion, and cave-hyasna had vanished away, along with the whole 

 group of pachyderms, and of all the extinct animals, but one, 

 the Irish elk, was still surviving. This animal, indeed, is much 

 rarer in England than in Ireland, in which latter country it 

 seems to have lingered after its extinction in the former. 

 According to some of the Irish savants it was destroyed by 

 the hand of man. The reindeer still lived on ; and its presence 

 proves that the pre-historic climate was more severe in Britain 

 than that under which we now live. As the pre-historic is 

 remarkable for the absence of many of the animals of the pre- 

 ceding period, so is it characterized by the presence of others 

 of a totally distinct character. The sheep, the goat, and the 

 Bos longifrons appear for the first time ; they are widely spread 

 through and. highly characteristic of all the deposits. With 

 reference to the latter of these animals I am obliged to differ 

 from the views of Professor Owen, who considers that it is also 

 of post-glacial age. An analysis, however, of all the evidence 

 that there is upon the subject, compels me to believe that the 

 animal has not yet been found in any deposit of that age in 

 Britain.* Before the invasion of the Romans it was kept in 

 great herds by the pre-historic folk, and is found universally 

 in their tumuli and places of habitation. During the Roman 

 occupation it was not supplanted by any other breed of oxen, 

 as Professor Owen suggests, for its broken bones, teeth, and 

 horncores in the refuse heaps of every Roman town and station 

 in Britian, prove that it alone of the oxen, was the foud of the 

 provincials. On the landing of the Saxons it disappeared 

 * " Quart. Geol. Journal." 1867. Brit. Foss. Oxen, Part. ii. 



