And flint implements, and pointed javelin-heads made of reindeer horn, are
found associated with it in the vicinity of the old hearths established by
Palæolithic man in the cave called the Trou du Sureau, on the river
Malignée in Belgium.
In the cavern of Goyet, also in Belgium, there are five bone layers,
alternating with six beds of alluvial deposits, showing that the cave had
been inhabited by different species at various periods. The lion was
succeeded by the cave-bear, and this by hyænas; then Palæolithic man
became a tenant and has left his bones there, together with flint
implements and remains of numerous species, including those already
enumerated as his contemporaries.
THE SABRE-TOOTHED TIGER OR LION.--This species, _Machairodus[50]
latifrons_ of Owen, was remarkable for having long sabre-shaped canines.
It belongs to an extinct genus, of which four other species are known,
characterised by the possession of serrated teeth. The genus is known to
be represented in the Auvergne beds between the Eocene and Miocene, in the
Miocene of Greece and India, in the Pliocene of South America and Europe,
and in the Pleistocene. Mr. Dawkins believes that this species survived to
post-glacial times. It is one of the numerous animals whose remains have
been found with traces of man and flint implements in cave deposits at
Kent's Hole, near Torquay, and elsewhere.
THE CAVE-BEAR, _Ursus spelæus_, of Rosenmüller.--The appearance of this
species has been preserved to us in the drawing by Palæolithic man found
in the cave of Massat (Arieze).
It occurs in the Cromer Forest Bed, a deposit referred by Mr. Boyd Dawkins
to the early part of the Glacial period, and generally regarded as
transitional between the Pliocene and Quaternary. It is also found in the
caves of Perigaud, which are considered to belong to the reindeer era of
M. Lartet or the opening part of the Recent period, and numerous
discoveries of its remains at dates intermediate to these have been made
in Britain and in Europe. Carl Vogt, indeed, is of opinion that this
species is the progenitor of our living brown bear, _Ursus arctos_, and
Mr. Boyd Dawkins also says that those "who have compared the French,
German, and British specimens, gradually realize the fact that the fossil
remains of the bears form a graduated series, in which all the variations
that at first sight appear specific vanish away."
It has been identified by Mr. Busk among the associated mammalian bones of
the Brixham cave. Its remains are very abundant in the bone deposit of the
Trou de Sureau in Belgium, and in the cavern of Goyet, which it tenanted
alternately with the lion and hyæna, and, like them, appears to have
preyed on man and the larger mammalia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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