The discoveries made in Kent’s Cavern, in the year 1842 and again
in 1847, led to a thorough investigation of the series of galleries
forming the now celebrated Brixham Caves, near Torquay, and as early as
1859 the labours of the explorers were rewarded by the discovery of a
number of flint implements in the cave-earth or loam, _underneath_ the
layer of stalagmite, which were the work of men living in Palæolithic
times, prior to the existence of the reindeer, whose antlers were found
deposited _in_ the layer of stalagmite. Previous to this time, when
McEnery, in 1826, examined Kent’s Cavern, he had stated that he had
found several teeth of _Ursus cultridens_, a huge carnivore belonging
to Tertiary formations, but now extinct; and as this monster was first
known in Meiocene deposits in France, but had never been traced in any
cavern or fluviatile Pleistocene deposits, although it had occurred in
Pleiocene formations, considerable excitement was caused on the score
that the flint implements lately found might possibly have belonged
to Meiocene, or at latest early Pleiocene men. Further investigations
were accordingly commenced for the purpose of solving this problem,
the explorations being under the superintendence of Messrs. Vivian and
Pengelley; and in 1872 they at last came upon a fine incisor of _Ursus
cultridens_ in the uppermost part of the cave-earth, which settled the
point as to man’s existence at the same time with the extinct bear
in England. The Kent’s Cavern deposits are as follows:—1. Limestone.
2. Black mould, containing articles of mediæval, Romano-British, and
pre-Roman date. 3. Stalagmite floor, from 16 to 20 inches thick,
containing a human jaw and remains of extinct animals. 4. Black
earth, containing charcoal and other evidence of fire, and also bone
and flint instruments. 5. Red cave-earth, containing Palæolithic
implements and bones and teeth of extinct animals, such as cave-lion,
mammoth, rhinoceros, and hyæna, and including the tooth of the _Ursus
cultridens_, or _Machairodus latidens_. 6. Second stalagmite floor,
from 3 to 12 feet thick, covering bones of bears only. 7. Dark red
sandy loam, containing bones of bears, three flint implements, and
one flint chip. The fact of the _Ursus cultridens_ being contemporary
in England with man is of enormous interest to geologists and
anthropologists, for it places the date of Palæolithic man as far back
as the Pleiocene age, instead of, as heretofore, in the Pleistocene.
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