1896.] Anthropology. 957 
Cave Hunting in Scotland.—If as we understand no chipped 
blades of the “ Turtleback” or drift character have been gathered in 
Scotland or northern Europe, if no traces of (Paleolithic) man in 
Association with the Cave Bear, Woolly Rhinocerus and Mammoth 
have been discovered in caves or quarries anywhere to the northward 
of middle England or in Scandinavia North Germany and Russia, if 
in a word it can be proved that snow and ice precluded human presence 
or obliterated man’s foot-prints in northern Europe at the time when 
drift men were chipping flint on the banks of the Thames and Somme, 
then the exploration of caves in any part of this colder European 
region is of particular scientific interest. Near Oban in Scotland the 
Mackay, Gas works, Distillery, and MacArthur caves recently explored 
by Mr. J. Anderson for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (see pro- 
ceedings of the Society, vol. XXIX, 1895, p. 211) showed human rub- 
bish deposits consisting largely of the shells of ediblé mollusks (Ostrea, 
Patella, Pecten, Solen, ete.), interbedded in one instance (the Mackay 
Cave) with a gravel layer apparently caused by a marine inundation. 
In the latter cave, fairly representing the others, Mr. Anderson found in 
in the shell rubbish about 150 bone needles and points, seven numerously 
barbed bone harpoons, sometimes with pierced bases, three pebble ham- 
merstones, a few flint nodules, and several flakes and scrapers together 
with numerous fish bones and the remains of the common deer, the Bos 
longifrons, boar, the dog and the cat; in other words, the recent fauna of 
the region. The bones of fifteen human skeletons found apparently near 
the surface and above the shell and bone refuse in the various caves, ac- 
cording to Mr. Anderson and Sir William Turner, represent a people of 
the Neolithic or late stone age in Europe, while on the other hand M. 
Boule (see L. Anthropologie, May and June, 1896, p. 321) citing the 
gravel bed as evidence of an early flood and ogmparing the barbed and 
pierced harpoons with similar ł d to be ofan intermediate 
age (between Paleolithic and N eolithic) from certain French caves, sug- 
gests that the Oban remains form a connecting link between the Paleo- 
lithic (Mammoth, Rhinoceros and Reindeer time) and the Neolithic 
(recent fauna time) of western Europe. When all the results of Euro- 
pean archzology are summed up it has been supposed that a hiatus 
in time unbridged by any intermediate human or animal presence, ex- 
isted between the earlier and later of these periods, and a link will be ad- 
ded to te archeological chain, if discoveries in French caves or else- 
where ily fill the suy d gap But whether the remains from 
i 
r Taal 
Oban can or tb t ur- 
ther investigation will show. For a time the cave explorer mene leave 
