TEETH A COMBINATION OF CONES.
At the usual monthly meeting of the Manchester (Eng.) Odontological Society, on December 10th, Mr. W. A. Hooton showed a collection of bones and specimens of ancient implements and pottery recently discovered in a limestone cavern at Deepdale, near Buxton, including remains of a brown bear, Celtic ox, deer, wild boar, fox, sheep, horse, and other animals.
The skull of the bear, which was in fine preservation, was found imbedded in a mass of stalagmite more than a foot thick. The specimen was an old one, and the teeth had been subjected to very rough usage, being excessively worn down and many of the pulp cavities exposed. The canines had all been fractured and afterwards worn smooth, with the exception of the right upper, which was of full length and encircled by a band of erosion. There was no trace of the second premolars.
The skull of a Celtic ox (bos longifrons) showed portions of skin in a petrified condition still adherent, and there was also half the lower jaw of a calf.
In the clay were found portions of a stag's antlers of great size, somewhat softened by exposure to moisture.
Although no human bones have so far been met with, the signs of man's presence were conclusive, and that probably during the ancient British and Roman periods. One antler had been divided, and the tip smoothed and sharply-pointed; another was shaped, apparently for use as a spear head; and close at hand a small carved bone ornament, much blackened, and some bits of bronze were found.
We know that fires were made in the cave, for fragments of charcoal are preserved in the stalagmite.
The specimens of pottery are unfortunately much broken, but examples of Romano-British and also of Samia ware have been identified by Prof. Boyd-Dawkins, also pieces of hand-made pottery.
Dr. Shaw said that what had been exhibited by Mr. Hooton referred us back to that almost eternity of the past when the limestone was formed in which these caves are now found—a time before the appearance of vertebrate animals. And even when, inconceivable ages after it was formed, the limestone had risen from the shallow seas and became a part of the dry land, these caves must have been formed in it at a date so remote as to be almost incomprehensible to our mental grasp. And they had undoubtedly been, from a time of which we have no record down to clearly historical times, the homes of animals—man included. Many of these animals have, in only comparatively recent times, become extinct. In many of these caves, however, are to be found remains that show they have been the homes of animals now only to be found in hot climates, but were able to roam far north of their present habitations at that period when this island formed part of a great continent which was connected with Africa, and possessed an altogether different temperature than at present. The ruder kind of pottery to which Mr. Hooton referred are probably of Neolithic origin. In regard to the ornaments and better class of pottery found in these caves, it shows they have been at some time inhabited by a race greatly superior to the ancient riverdrift and cave-men, and their still later Neolithic inhabitants; and there can be no doubt they were the places in which the Celtic and Roman element sought refuge at the time of the fierce Saxon invasion.
Referring to the inferior jaw of a wild boar in which there was, at the extreme posterior portion, a fully-formed molar tooth which had not yet erupted, and consequently, had not any of its cusps in the slightest degree worn down by mastication, he (Dr. Shaw) said that he had read a paper some years since before the Manchester Microscopical Society, in which he had vaguely hinted at a theory which he had not since had time to work out, but which he would now distinctly state and leave it to younger men to consider. Mr. Hooton had also exhibited a most interesting specimen of a young, partly-formed and unerupted horse tooth in which also there had not been any wearing down of the cusps. He (Dr. Shaw) had several specimens of the same sort. Now, this molar horse tooth was in reality a combination of five teeth with projecting cones of various heights. As soon as the tooth appeared in the mouth these cones began to be worn down in mastication, and the tooth eventually presented a flat surface with alternate layers of enamel, dentine and cementum, so arranged that the occlusion formed a veritable mill for grinding the food. Although the molars of the bear and boar are not made up in the same way as those of the horse, the wearing down can be seen to have taken place in the teeth of the bear and the boar exhibited; and if gentlemen will kindly examine this unerupted tooth at the extreme posterior portion of the inferior jaw of the boar, it will be seen what this animal's molars are like when first formed, and before they are put to any use. They are ummistakably made up of a great number of cones. Therefore, it was his (Dr. Shaw's) opinion that, while in the primitive manner dentine and eventually teeth first appeared there were no signs of cones, when this form did, in the long process of time, make its appearance, it became a starting point from which has been derived, by a great variety of combinations, the forms of the teeth of the higher animals.