Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
About ten years afterwards, in a "Memoir on the Geology of South
Devon," published in 1842 by the Geological Society of London,* an able
geologist, Mr. Godwin-Austen, declared that he had obtained in the same
cave (Kent's Hole) works of Man from undisturbed loam or clay, under
stalagmite, mingled with the remains of extinct animals, and that all
these must have been introduced "before the stalagmite flooring had been
formed." He maintained that such facts could not be explained away by
the hypothesis of sepulture, as in Dr. Buckland's well-known case of
the human skeleton of Paviland, because in the Devon cave the flint
implements were widely distributed through the loam, and lay beneath the
stalagmite.
(* "Transactions of the Geological Society" 2nd series
volume 6 page 444.)
As the osseous and other contents of Kent's Hole had, by repeated
diggings, been thrown into much confusion, it was thought desirable in
1858, when a new and intact bone-cave was discovered at Brixham,
about four miles south of Torquay, to have a thorough and systematic
examination made of it. The Royal Society, chiefly at the instance of
Dr. Falconer, made two grants towards defraying the expenses, and
Miss Burdett-Coutts contributed liberally towards the same object. A
committee of geologists was charged with the investigations, among whom
Dr. Falconer and Mr. Prestwich took a prominent part, visiting Torquay
while the excavations were in progress. Mr. Pengelly, another member
of the committee, well qualified for the task by nearly twenty years'
previous experience in cave explorations, zealously directed and
superintended the work. By him, in 1859, I was conducted through
the subterranean galleries after they had been cleared out; and Dr.
Falconer, who was also at Torquay, showed me the numerous fossils which
had been discovered, and which he was then studying, all numbered and
labelled, with reference to a journal in which the geological position
of each specimen was recorded with scrupulous care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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