Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of EuropeDawkins, William Boyd
History
Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe
Dawkins, William Boyd
Antiquities, Prehistoric -- Europe; Caves -- Europe; Europe -- Antiquities; Prehistoric peoples -- Europe
The cave called the Cat-Hole, in Gower (Glamorgan), explored by
Colonel Wood in 1864, contained several human skeletons, flint flakes,
fragments of red pottery marked with a string, cut bones, a stone
muller, and a bronze socketed celt. The last is of the same pattern
as some of those in the collection of the Rev. Canon Greenwell, from
Heathery Burn, and has been cast in a mould similar in size and
ornamentation to that figured in woodcut 35.
_The Caves of Césareda probably occupied by Cannibals._
The contents of three caves[91] in the Iberian peninsula, referable to
the dawn of the bronze age, render it very probable that the use of
human flesh was not unknown in those times.
In 1867 Senhor J. L. Delgado described his researches in the caverns
of Césareda, in the valley of the Tagus, in the Casa da Maura, Lapa
Furada, and Cova da Maura. The first of these contained two distinct
strata. The lower, consisting of sand mixed with fragments of rock,
rested on the stalagmite, and contained fragments of charcoal, one
implement of bone, and many of flint, a scraper, a flake, and an
arrow-head. The broken bones and teeth belonged to the following
animals:--The lynx, fox, brown-bear, dog and wolf, a species of deer,
the water-vole, and the rabbit. None of the remains of the carnivora
had been subjected to the action of fire, or had been used for food. A
human skull with lower jaw was dug out of the deepest part, but, since
the matrix had been disturbed, it had probably been interred after the
accumulation of the deposit.
It is recognized by Professor Busk[92] as belonging to the same long
type as the skulls of the caves of Gibraltar and the Basque graveyard,
measuring in length 6·7 inches, in breadth 5·3, in height 5·5, and
therefore possessing cephalic and latitudinal indices of ·785 and
·820.[93]
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