The Antiquity of Man

by Sir Charles Lyell

The discovery of the existence of this suite of caverns near the sea at Brixham was made accidentally by the roof of one of them being broken through in quarrying. None of the four external openings now exposed to view in steep cliffs or in the sloping side of a valley were visible before the breccia and earthy matter which blocked them up were removed during the late exploration. According to a ground-plan drawn up by Professor Ramsay, it appears that some of the passages which run nearly north and south are fissures connected with the vertical dislocation of the rocks, while another set, running nearly east and west, are tunnels, which have the appearance of having been to a great extent hollowed out by the action of running water. The central or main entrance, leading to what is called the "reindeer gallery," because a perfect antler of that animal was found sticking in the stalagmitic floor, is 95 feet above the level of the sea, being also 78 above the bottom of the adjoining valley. The united length of the galleries which were cleared out amounted to several hundred feet. Their width never exceeded 8 feet. They were sometimes filled up to the roof with mud, but occasionally there was a considerable space between the roof and floor. The latter, in the case of the fissure-caves, was covered with stalagmite, but in the tunnels it was usually free from any such incrustation. The following was the general succession of the deposits forming the contents of the underground passages and channels:—

First. At the top, a layer of stalagmite varying in thickness from 1 to 15 inches, which sometimes contained bones, such as the reindeer's horn, already mentioned, and an entire humerus of the cave-bear.

Secondly. Next below, loam or bone-earth, of an ochreous red colour, with angular stones and some pebbles, from 2 to 13 feet in thickness.

Thirdly. At the bottom of all, gravel with many rounded pebbles in it. This was everywhere removed so long as the tunnels which narrowed downwards were wide enough to be worked. It proved to be almost entirely barren of fossils.

The mammalia obtained from the bone-earth consisted of Elephas primigenius, or mammoth; Rhinoceros tichorhinus; Ursus spelaeus; Hyaena spelaea; Felis spelaea, or the cave-lion; Cervus tarandus, or the reindeer; a species of horse, ox, and several rodents, and others not yet determined.

No human bones were obtained anywhere during these excavations, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the bone-earth; and one of the most perfect lay at the depth of 13 feet from the surface, and was covered with bone-earth of that thickness. Neglecting the less perfect specimens, some of which were met with even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen knives, recognised as artificially formed by the most experienced antiquaries, were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from near the bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the associated mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of antiquity, as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, similar tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date to the era of the introduction of bronze. But the contemporaneity of those at Brixham with the extinct animals is demonstrated not only by the occurrence at one point in overlying stalagmite of the bone of a cave-bear, but also by the discovery at the same level in the bone-earth, and in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool, of the entire left hind-leg of a cave-bear. This specimen, which was shown me by Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, was exhumed from the earthy deposit in the reindeer gallery, near its junction with the flint-knife gallery, at the distance of about sixty-five feet from the main entrance. The mass of earth containing it was removed entire, and the matrix cleared away carefully by Dr. Falconer in the presence of Mr. Pengelly. Every bone was in its natural place, the femur, tibia, fibula, ankle-bone, or astragalus, all in juxtaposition. Even the patella or detached bone of the knee-pan was searched for, and not in vain. Here, therefore, we have evidence of an entire limb not having been washed in a fossil state out of an older alluvium, and then swept afterwards into a cave, so as to be mingled with flint implements, but having been introduced when clothed with its flesh, or at least when it had the separate bones bound together by their natural ligaments, and in that state buried in mud.

If they were not all of contemporary date, it is clear from this case, and from the humerus of the Ursus spelaeus, before cited, as found in a floor of stalagmite, that the bear lived after the flint tools were manufactured, or in other words, that Man in this district preceded the cave-bear.

A glance at the position of Windmill Hill, in which the caverns are situated, and a brief survey of the valleys which bound it on three sides, are enough to satisfy a geologist that the drainage and geographical features of this region have undergone great changes since the gravel and bone-earth were carried by streams into the subterranean cavities above described. Some worn pebbles of haematite, in particular, can only have come from their nearest parent rock, at a period when the valleys immediately adjoining the caves were much shallower than they now are. The reddish loam in which the bones are embedded is such as may be seen on the surface of limestone in the neighbourhood, but the currents which were formerly charged with such mud must have run at a level 78 feet above that of the stream now flowing in the same valley. It was remarked by Mr. Pengelly that the stones and bones in the loam had their longest axes parallel to the direction of the tunnels and fissures, showing that they were deposited by the action of a stream.*

(* Pengelly, "Geologist" volume 4 1861 page 153.)

It appears that so long as the flowing water had force enough to propel stony fragments, no layer of fine mud could accumulate, and so long as there was a regular current capable of carrying in fine mud and bones, no superficial crust of stalagmite. In some passages, as before stated, stalagmite was wanting, while in one place seven or eight alternations of stalagmite and loam were observed, seeming to indicate a prevalence of more rainy seasons, succeeded by others, when the water was for a time too low to flood the area where the calcareous incrustation accumulated.