﻿INTRODUCTION. xi 



neath the bones of elephant, bear, and other animals, coupled with the state of the cave- 

 earth, which had been disturbed anterior to Dr. Buckland's examination of the cave, would 

 prove that the interment was not of Pleistocene date. No traces of sheep or goat have as 

 yet been afforded by any Pleistocene deposit of Britain, France, or Germany. 



§ 2, c. These two instances of the presence of remains of Pleistocene and Prehistoric 

 age in the same cavern are two out of a large number in which a similar mixture of organic 

 remains are met with. Instances also may be multiplied of caverns containing remains 

 of Prehistoric age alone without others. Thus, Professor Owen quotes a cave at Arnside 

 Knott, near Kendal, that yielded wild boar (Sus scrofa), brown bear (Ursus arctos), and 

 other existing species of Mammalia. 1 



§ 2, d. During oar explorations of caverns in Somersetshire we explored three of 

 Prehistoric age. In 1859 a small cave at the head of Cheddar Pass yielded a large 

 quantity of bones. Prior to our examination, on its first discovery, some of the remains 

 were deposited in the Museums of Bristol and Oxford. The list of Mammalia comprises, 

 besides man, the wolf, fox, badger, wild boar, goat, roebuck, Bos longifrons, and horse. 

 A human skull from this cave, preserved in the Oxford Museum, is very well developed, 2 

 and may have belonged to a person of considerable capacity. 



§ 2, e. In 1863 we examined a second cave, also in the Mountain Limestone of the 

 Mendip range, in Burrington Combe, and named it from its discoverer Whitcombe's 

 Hole. It was very nearly blocked up with earth mingled with charcoal, and contained a 

 large quantity of the remains of ox, red deer, goat, wolf, fox, badger, rabbit, and hare. 

 In the lower portion of the cave, where the floor dips downwards, we disinterred fragments 

 of a rude unornamented urn of the coarsest black ware, with the rim turned at right 

 angles, and an angle iron which more closely resembled those found strengthening the 

 angles of wooden chests in the Roman graves on the banks of the Somme than anything 

 else we have seen. The accumulation of bones and charcoal proves that the cave was in- 



1 'British Fossil Mammals,' 8vo, 1846, p. 429. 



2 .We are indebted to Professor Phillips, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., for the following note upon this skull : 

 — ■" The cranium is dolicho-cephalic, elevated in the parietal region, very narrow behind, with a very 

 distinct occipito-parietal slope, narrow and evenly convex in the front ; substance thin ; individual young, 

 probably female. This cranium most nearly resembles one from the cave at Llandebie (now in the Oxford 

 Museum), which is filled with stalagmite, and was accompanied by bones of elk, bear, and Bos longifrons. 

 The dimensions are — 



Length .... in inches 7 - 22 



Breadth, parietal . . „ 5 32 



„ frontal . . „ 3*75 



" The last measurement is taken along the supraciliary line, for it is hardly a crest in this individual. 

 " Do you ask what race of men this belonged to 1 I answer that I have seen plenty of men and women 

 with such crania in the south of England and South Wales." — Oxford, Sept. 1, 1865. 



