vol. xx. (2) NOTES ON COTTESWOLD-MALVERN REGION 
!25 
the coincidence of a Tundra period with isolation from the 
Continent would account for the supposed hiatus at the end of 
the Glacial Epoch. 
On the general question, it may be remarked that the 
succession of animal life from the beginning to the close of 
Pleistocene time appears to have been unbroken. The change 
from the older to the newer group of animals was gradual, 
Elephas antiquus and Rhinoceros leptorhinus having persisted 
until the Mousterian stage, while Elephas primigenius and 
R. tichorhinus are represented in earlier deposits, a per- 
sistence that seems inconsistent with prolonged interglacial 
periods of warm climate, or isolation from the Continent 
until late Glacial times. 
No satisfactory explanation of the remarkable absence 
of trustworthy evidence of the occupation of this district by 
Pleistocene man has yet been offered. The few recorded 
discoveries of skeletal remains include “ a large lower jaw in 
alluvial gravel beneath 12\ feet of undisturbed blue clay at 
Cheltenham ” ( 91 , p. 489) and “ a skeleton at about 9^ feet from 
the surface in a bed of blue clay underlying peat ” at Mickleton 
Tunnel ( 56 , p. 26). The bones have not been preserved, and 
no definite age can be assigned to them. As the remains 
of Mammoth, Rhinoceros and other Pleistocene mammalia 
are abundant, particularly in the Severn and Avon gravels 
( 69 , p. 90), it may be that human bones were too friable to 
survive. There is no reason to suppose that races of hunters 
would avoid a region where game was plentiful. 
Only three specimens of undoubted Chellean or earlier 
type of flint implement have been recorded from the district. 
Two were found in Drift gravel at the Sewage Works, near the 
Severn, at Worcester. The other was found in Jurassic gravel, 
with seams of siliceous sand, at Bamwood near Gloucester, 
a deposit of considerable extent which has also yielded tusks 
and teeth of the Mammoth. By the kindness of Mrs. Clifford 
these objects have been exhibited at Meetings of the 
Club. 
It is possible that Britain was not entirely deserted by man 
during an interval between the Magdalenian and Neolithic 
