Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
The only British cave from which implements resembling those of Amiens
have been obtained, since the attention of geologists has been awakened
to the importance of minutely observing the position of such relics
relatively to the associated fossil mammalia, is that recently opened
near Wells in Somersetshire. It occurs near the cave of Wookey Hole,
from the mouth of which the river Axe issues on the southern flanks of
the Mendips. No one had suspected that on the left side of the ravine,
through which the river flows after escaping from its subterranean
channel, there were other caves and fissures concealed beneath the green
sward of the steep sloping bank. About ten years ago, a canal was made,
several hundred yards in length, for the purpose of leading the waters
of the Axe to a paper-mill, now occupying the middle of the ravine. In
carrying out this work, about 12 feet of the left bank was cut away,
and a cavernous fissure, choked up to the roof with ossiferous loam, was
then, for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, originally
9 feet high and 36 wide, traversed the Dolomitic Conglomerate; and
fragments of that rock, some angular and others water-worn, were
scattered through the red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were
abundant. For an account of them and the position they occupied we are
indebted to Mr. Dawkins, F.G.S., who, in company with Mr. Williamson,
explored the cavern in 1859, and obtained from it the bones of the
Hyaena spelaea in such numbers as to lead him to conclude that the
cavern had for a long time been a hyaena's den. Among the accompanying
animals found fossil in the same bone-earth, were observed Elephas
primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus spelaeus, Bos primigenius,
Megaceros hibernicus, Cervus tarandus (and other species of Cervus),
Felis spelaea, Canis lupus, Canis vulpes, and teeth and bones of the
genus Equus in great numbers.
Intermixed with the above fossil bones were some arrowheads, made of
bone, and many chipped flints, and chipped pieces of chert, a white or
bleached flint weapon of the spearhead Amiens type, which was taken out
of the undisturbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a
hyaena's tooth, showing that Man had either been contemporaneous with
or had preceded the extinct fauna. After penetrating 34 feet from the
entrance, Mr. Dawkins found the cave bifurcating into two branches, one
of which was vertical. By this rent, perhaps, some part of the contents
of the cave may have been introduced.*
(* Boyd Dawkins, "Proceedings of the Geological Society"
January 1862.)
When I examined the spot in 1860, after I had been shown some remains of
the hyaena collected there, I felt convinced that a complete revolution
must have taken place in the topography of the district since the time
of the extinct quadrupeds. I was not aware at the time that flint tools
had been met with in the same bone-deposit.
CAVES OF GOWER IN GLAMORGANSHIRE, SOUTH WALES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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