A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
Above the breccia is the cave-earth, in which flint implements are
by far more numerous, and are of a higher form, some being carefully
chipped all round. The earlier tool was fashioned by heavy blows
dealt against the core of flint, detaching large flakes. But the
tools of the second period are neatly trimmed. The flakes were
detached, very often by pressure and a jerk, and then the edges
were delicately worked with a small tool. A bone needle was also met
with, and bone awls, and two harpoons of reindeer antler, the one
barbed on one side and the other on both.
Rude, coarse pottery has also been found, but only quite near the
surface, and this belongs to a later period.
There are other caves in the same formation, at Anstis and at
Brixham, that have rendered good results when explored.
The two deposits are separated from each other by a sheet of
crystalline stalagmite, in some places nearly twelve feet thick,
formed after the breccia was deposited, and before the cave-earth
was introduced. After the stalagmite had been formed, it was broken
up by some unknown natural agency, and much of it, along with some
of the breccia, was carried out by water from the cave, before the
deposition of the cave-earth began.
"From these observations it is evident that the Riverdrift
men inhabited the caves of Devonshire, Derbyshire, and
Nottinghamshire in an early stage of the history of caverns,
and that after an interval, to be measured in Kent's Hole by
the above-mentioned physical changes, the Cave-men (those of
the Second Period) found shelter in the same places. The former
also followed the chase in the valley of the Elwy and the vale
of Clwydd in North Wales, and the latter found ample food in
the numerous reindeer, horses, and bisons then wandering over
the plains extending from the Mendip Hills to the Quantocks,
and the low, fertile tract now covered by the estuary of the
Severn and the Irish Sea. When all these facts are taken into
consideration, it is difficult to escape Mr. Pengelly's
conclusion that the two sets of implements represent two
distinct social states, of which the ruder is by far the most
ancient."[38]
[38] BOYD DAWKINS, _Early Man in Britain_, 1880, p. 197.
We have, in the caves of France, evidence of the successive layers
of civilisation, one superposed on the other, down to the reindeer
hunter, who ate horses, represented by the cave-earth man of Kent's
Hole; and in this latter we have this same man superposed on the
traces of the still earlier man of the river-drift. To make all
plainer, I will add here a summary of the deposits.
{ Modern, Roman, etc. }
{ Iron Age, Celtic, bronze ornaments. } Fauna, as
Neolithic { Bronze weapons, Ivernian, flint } at present.
{ tools. }
{ Flint and pottery. }
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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