EARLY MAN 



The Palaeolithic Age 



THE examination of bone-caves in Devon during the past century is 

 the main source of our knowledge of early man in the county. 

 Devonshire has the distinction of at one time possessing at Oreston, 

 Plymouth, a bone-cave in the Devonian limestone w^hich was 

 systematically explored as long ago as 1816, and of still having within its 

 borders, in Kent's Cavern or Kent's Hole, the most important cave dwelling 

 of primitive man known in the country. 



Oreston. — The quarries at Oreston, from which the stone was obtained for the construction 

 of Plymouth breakwater, were opened in 1 8 1 2 under the superintendence of Mr. Whidbey, who 

 was requested by Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal Society, to narrowly examine any 

 caverns his workmen might break into for bones or fossil remains, and if such were found, steps 

 were to be taken for their preservation and examination. 



This request was responded to by Mr. Whidbey in an efficient manner, for he discovered 

 several caverns and ossiferous fissures containing fossil bones, which were deposited in the Museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, and reported on by Mr. Clift, the curator. 



Colonel Hamilton Smith-' states that prior to 1833, and repeatedly since, caves have been 

 opened at Oreston, near Plymouth, several of which had in them bones of extinct animals and 

 abundant hyaena coprolite, denoting that they had been dens of carnivora. Among these remains 

 the upper portion of a humerus of man was recognized. On this being pointed out to the 

 possessor it was immediately thrown away. Colonel Hamilton Smith further states that this is not 

 the only instance of the kind. 



Shortly after the exploration of Oreston came the researches of Dean Buckland in the cave at 

 Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, and the famous examination of Kent's Cavern, Torquay, 



Kent's Cavern, Windmill Hill Cavern. — Devonians may congratulate themselves that 

 their county yielded not only the first-fruits of the systematic investigation of bone-caves and the 

 antiquity of man in Britain, but the heaviest crop of all was garnered from Kent's Cavern by the 

 Rev, J, McEnery, Mr, Godwin Austen, the Torquay Natural History Society, and a committee of 

 the British Association, which from 1865 to 1880 persevered with a scientific and thorough 

 investigation, mainly carried out and reported on by the late Mr, Pengelly, F.R.S., of Torquay, 



Mr. Pengelly describes the cavern ^ as situated in a small wooded hill of Devonian limestone, 

 which rises a little more than 200 ft, above sea level, and is about one mile east of Torquay Harbour. 

 On the eastern side of the hill there is a small vertical clifF in which are the two apertures leading 

 into the cavern. These are nearly on the same level, 54 ft, apart, about 190 ft. above the 

 level of mean tide, and about 60 ft. to 70 ft. above the bottom of the valley in the same 

 vertical plane. The cavern consists of two parallel divisions, an eastern and a western, each 

 containing a series of chambers and passages, and throwing off lateral branches, some of which are of 

 considerable leno-th and very tortuous. The divisions are united near their northern and their 

 southern ends. The connecting passage at the latter extremity is completely filled with various 

 deposits, whilst the northern appears to have always been a comparatively lofty open chamber. 

 The eastern division, into which the two apertures or entrances directly open, and which has been 

 completely explored by the committee, is 285 ft. long, 90 ft, in greatest breadth, and, when 

 measured from the bottom of the excavation made by the explorers, 22 ft. in maximum height. The 

 western division is probably of greater length, and is at a considerably lower level than the eastern. 



' Natural Hisiory of the Human Species, 95-96- ' Trans. Plymouth InstA, 345-346, 



341 



