34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
the Hoe, generally dated back to a time "when the limestone 
rocks " enclosing them " were but slightly raised above the waters, 
and when, therefore, nothing was easier than the introduction 
into the caverns of bodies of animals swept down the streams, 
probably in time of flood." I made allowance then, however, for 
the possibility of some of our bone-caves turning out to be dens ; 
and in fact I almost seem to have forecast this very cave : for I 
remarked, "if any of the caves were dens, the time range must 
have been long enough to have placed the cavities so occupied 
above the general reach of the waters, while the character of the 
fauna remained unchanged. Nay, it is quite possible that when 
the deposits originated, some of the caverns into which portions 
have since found their way, had no adequate surface communica- 
tion." 7 The exceptional conditions of the present discovery could 
hardly have been more carefully provided for. 
I also said in 1879, and repeat now, that the period to which 
these remains belong " was certainly sufficiently remote to allow of 
the production of a present change of some hundred feet in the 
relative local positions of land and water, and beyond that of a 
pause of sufficient duration for the formation of our raised 
beach, with the time occupied in the continued elevation, and 
subsequent depression of the submerged forest." That no 
noteworthy change of level has taken place here in the historic 
period we know ; and the fact that the kitchen -midden on 
Mount Eatten isthmus, which apart from the caves gives us the 
earliest distinct evidence of man in this locality, has come down 
partially intact to the present day, shows that since its formation 
there can have been no material depression ; and that our cave 
men must be . very far older than their rude successors of the 
shore. 
The point to remember in dealing with this question of antiquity, 
is that the Cattedown Cave is not an isolated fact, but part of a 
series. 
So far as the evidence of date is affected by accessory points, 
it is decidedly in the direction of antiquity. The traces of 
human handiwork are, it is true, very few ; but they are such as 
are consistent with the earliest men known to us in this country. 
The very paucity of those traces, it seems to me, is itself an 
argument in favour of age. The belongings of Neolithic man 
7 Op. cit. vii. 110. 
