This occupation of the Victoria Cave by the Brit-Welsh is a mere episode in its history. It was inhabited by man in the neolithic age, at a time so remote that the interval between it and the historical period can only be measured by the rude method by which geologists estimate the relative age of the rocks. At the entrance the dark Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh stratum (Fig. 20, No. 4; Fig. 21, No. 4) lay buried, as we have seen, under an accumulation of angular fragments of stone which had fallen from the cliff. It rested on a similar accumulation (Fig. 20, No. 3; Fig. 21, No. 3) which was no less than six feet thick, and at the bottom of this, at the point where it was based on a stiff grey clay, a bone harpoon (Fig. 26) was discovered, as well as charcoal; a bone bead (Fig. 27), three rude flint flakes, and the broken bones of the brown bear, stag, horse, and Celtic shorthorn (_Bos longifrons_). The harpoon is a little more than three inches long, with the head armed with two barbs on each side, and the base presenting a mode of securing attachment to the handle which has not before been discovered in Britain. Instead of a mere projection to catch the ligatures by which it was bound to the shaft, there is a well-cut barb on either side, pointing in a contrary direction to those which form the head. Ample use for such an instrument would be found in Malham tarn, some three miles off, and very probably also in that which formerly existed close by at Attermire, but which has been choked up by peat, and is now turned into grass-land by drainage. The remains of the brown bear consist of numerous hollow bones and teeth, and the shaft of a femur with its articular ends broken off, has been polished by friction against some soft substance, so that its surface has a lustre like that of glass. [Illustration: FIG. 27. Bone-bead (natural size.)]