52 Dr J. W. Dawson on the Antiquity of Man, 



of horse, ox, and several rodents, and others not yet deter- 

 mined. 



" No human bones were obtained anywhere during these 

 excavations, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest 

 part of the bone-earth ; and one of the most perfect lay at 

 the depth of 13 feet from the surface, and was covered with 

 bone-earth of that thickness. From a similar position was 

 taken one of those siliceous nuclei, or cores, from which 

 flint flakes had been struck off on every side. Neglecting 

 the less perfect specimens, some of which were met with 

 even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen knives, recognised 

 by the most experienced antiquaries as artificially formed, 

 were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from near the 

 bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the associated 

 mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of anti- 

 quity, as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, 

 similar tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior 

 in date to the era of the introduction of bronze. But the 

 anteriority of those at Brixham to the extinct animals is 

 demonstrated not only by the occurrence at one point, in 

 overlying stalagmite, of the bone of a cave-bear, but also by 

 the discovery at the same level in the bone-earth, and in 

 close proximity to a very perfect flint tool, of the entire left 

 hind-leg of a cave-bear. This specimen, which was shown 

 me by Dr Falconer and Mr Pengelly, was exhumed from 

 the earthy deposit in the reindeer gallery, near its junction 

 with the flint-knife gallery, at the distance of about 65 feet 

 from the main entrance. The mass of earth contaiuing it 

 w^as removed entire, and the matrix cleared away carefully 

 by Dr Falconer, in the presence of Mr Pengelly. Every 

 bone w^as in its natural place, the femur, tibia, fibula, ankle- 

 bone, or astragalus, all in juxtaposition. Even the patella 

 or detached bone of the knee-pan was searched for, and not 

 in vain. Here, therefore, we have evidence of an entire 

 limb not having been washed in a fossil state out of an older 

 alluvium, and then swept afterwards into a cave, so as to be 

 mingled with flint implements, but having been introduced 

 when clothed with its flesh, or at least when it had the 

 separate bones bound together by their natural ligaments, 

 and in that state buried in mud. 



