26 SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE BRISTOL DISTRICT. 
As has been already mentioned, there is no direct evidence available 
of glacial action anywhere in the Bristol district, but the occurrence of 
the Musk Sheep in the old gravels of the Avon at Freshford, of the 
Eeindeer in the bone-cave or fissure, on Durdham Down, and of the 
Lemming and Arctic Fox in that of Walton, near Clevedon, indicate 
semi-arctic conditions, and it is not unlikely that when these animals 
lived in the south of England, northern Britain was still in the grip of 
the ice of the glacial period. A land connection with the continent 
still existed, and Britain received thence its earliest human 
inhabitants. 
Owing to the numerous limestone hills, the Bristol district is 
exceptionally rich in bone-caves, which occur at Banwell, Cheddar, 
Hutton, Sandford, Uphill, and Wookey, in the Mendip district, and 
nearer Bristol, at Walton near Clevedon, and Durdham Down. The 
animal remains found in the majority of these bone-caves probably 
belong to a slightly later period than the old river gravel of Freshford. 
Prof. Boyd Dawkins gives the following vivid picture of the conditions 
of the Bristol area during this early Palseolithic period — ‘‘ We may 
picture to ourselves a fertile plain occupying the Bristol Channel, and 
supporting herds of reindeer, horses, and bisons, many elephants and 
rhinoceroses, and now and then being traversed by a stray 
hippopotamus, which would afford abundant prey to the lions, bears, 
and hyienas inhabiting all the accessible caves, as well as to their 
great destroyer, man. . . . Hyaenas were the normal occupants 
of the caves (e.^., Wookey Hole), and thither they brought their prey. 
We can picture these animals pursuing elephants and rhinoceroses 
along the slopes of the Mendips till they scared them into the 
precipitous ravine (Cheddar Gorge), or watching until the strength of a 
disabled bear or lion ebbed away sufficiently to allow of its being over- 
come by their cowardly strength. Man appeared from time to time 
on the scene, a miserable savage, armed with bow and spear, and 
unacquainted with metals. Sometimes he took possession of the den 
and drove out the hyaenas. He kindled his fires at the entrance to 
cook his food and to drive away wild animals ; then he went away, and 
the hyaenas came back to their abode.” 
In England there was a considerable break in time between the 
Palaeolithic and the succeeding Neolithic occupation. Great Britain 
had become insular, and the Neolithic farmers and herdsmen must 
have crossed the Channel to reach our shores. They mined for flint, 
and often, but by no means always, ground and polished the surface of 
their implements. They introduced the stocks of the more important 
domestic animals, such as the dog, horse, sheep, goat, short-horned 
cattle, and hog, as well as many cultivated seeds and fruits. These 
members of (possibly) Iberian race, perhaps allied to the Basques of the 
Pyrenees, are the ancestors of such tribes as the Silures, of South 
Wales, who were driven to the mountain fastnesses by the Celtic 
Bronze folk, the early pioneers of the Aryan invasions of Britain. 
