CHAPTER 10.
CAVERN DEPOSITS, AND PLACES OF SEPULTURE OF THE PLEISTOCENE PERIOD.
Flint Implements in Cave containing Hyaena and other extinct Mammalia in Somersetshire. Caves of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. Rhinoceros hemitoechus. Ossiferous Caves near Palermo. Sicily once part of Africa. Rise of Bed of the Mediterranean to the Height of three hundred Feet in the Human Period in Sardinia. Burial-place of Pleistocene Date of Aurignac in the South of France. Rhinoceros tichorhinus eaten by Man. M. Lartet on extinct Mammalia and Works of Art found in the Aurignac Cave. Relative Antiquity of the same considered.
WORKS OF ART ASSOCIATED WITH EXTINCT MAMMALIA IN A CAVERN IN SOMERSETSHIRE.
The only British cave from which implements resembling those of
Amiens have been obtained, since the attention of geologists has
been awakened to the importance of minutely observing the position
of such relics relatively to the associated fossil mammalia, is
that recently opened near Wells in Somersetshire. It occurs near
the cave of Wookey Hole, from the mouth of which the river Axe
issues on the southern flanks of the Mendips. No one had suspected
that on the left side of the ravine, through which the river flows
after escaping from its subterranean channel, there were other
caves and fissures concealed beneath the green sward of the steep
sloping bank. About ten years ago, a canal was made, several
hundred yards in length, for the purpose of leading the waters of
the Axe to a paper-mill, now occupying the middle of the ravine. In
carrying out this work, about 12 feet of the left bank was cut
away, and a cavernous fissure, choked up to the roof with
ossiferous loam, was then, for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, originally 9 feet high and 36 wide, traversed the Dolomitic Conglomerate; and fragments of that rock, some angular and others water-worn, were scattered through the red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were abundant. For an account of them and the position they occupied we are indebted to Mr. Dawkins, F.G.S., who, in company with Mr. Williamson, explored the cavern in 1859, and obtained from it the bones of the Hyaena spelaea in such numbers as to lead him to conclude that the cavern had for a long time been a hyaena's den. Among the accompanying animals found fossil in the same bone-earth, were observed Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus spelaeus, Bos primigenius, Megaceros hibernicus, Cervus tarandus (and other species of Cervus), Felis spelaea, Canis lupus, Canis vulpes, and teeth and bones of the genus Equus in great numbers.
Intermixed with the above fossil bones were some arrowheads, made
of bone, and many chipped flints, and chipped pieces of chert, a
white or bleached flint weapon of the spearhead Amiens type, which
was taken out of the undisturbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a hyaena's tooth, showing that Man had either been contemporaneous with or had preceded the extinct fauna. After penetrating 34 feet from the entrance, Mr. Dawkins found the cave bifurcating into two branches, one of which was vertical. By this rent, perhaps, some part of the contents of the cave may have been introduced.
When I examined the spot in 1860, after I had been shown some
remains of the hyaena collected there, I felt convinced that a
complete revolution must have taken place in the topography of the
district since the time of the extinct quadrupeds. I was not aware
at the time that flint tools had been met with in the same
bone-deposit.
CAVES OF GOWER IN GLAMORGANSHIRE, SOUTH WALES.
The ossiferous caves of the peninsula of Gower in Glamorganshire
have been diligently explored of late years by Dr. Falconer and
Lieutenant-Colonel E.R. Wood, who have thoroughly investigated the
contents of many which were previously unknown. Among these Dr. Falconer's skilled eye has recognised the remains of almost every quadruped which he had elsewhere found fossil in British caves: in some places the Elephas primigenius, accompanied by its usual companion, the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, in others Elephas antiquus, associated with Rhinoceros hemitoechus, Falconer; the extinct animals being often embedded, as in the Belgian caves, in the same matrix with species now living in Europe, such as the common badger (Meles taxus), the common wolf, and the fox.