Cave Hunting / Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe

by William Boyd Dawkins

The discovery of a flint-flake in the undisturbed lower brick-earths of Crayford, by the Rev. O. Fisher, in the presence of the writer, in April 1872, proves that man was living while these fluviatile strata were being deposited.

If these mammalia be compared with those of the forest-bed or the pleiocene age on the one hand, and with the late pleistocene on the other, it will be seen that they are linked to the former by Rhinoceros megarhinus, and to the latter by the musk sheep. The presence of the latter, the most arctic of the herbivores, in such strange company is most abnormal, and suggests the idea that the remains belong to two distinct eras. The skull, however, which I found at Crayford in 1867, and presented to the Museum of the Geological Survey, rested in intimate association with the bones of other species, is in the same mineral state, and bears no marks of being a “derived fossil.” It is the only trace of the animal as yet obtained from the lower brick-earths.

The absence of the reindeer, so numerous in the valley of the Thames, while the late pleistocene strata were being accumulated by the river, and the abundance of remains of the stag, seem to me to point backwards rather than forwards in time, and to imply that the lower brick-earths are not of late pleistocene age; just as the absence of the characteristic early pleistocene species shows that they are not of that age. The evidence seems to be sufficient to establish a stage intermediate between the two. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently conflicting to cause Dr. Falconer to come to the conclusion that these strata are of pleiocene date, and Mr. Prestwich to believe that they belong to a late stage in the pleistocene.

During the middle pleistocene, in the Thames valley, and at Clacton, the woolly rhinoceros, elephant, and mammoth competed for the same feeding-grounds with Rhinoceros hemitœchus, R. megarhinus, hippopotamus, and Elephas antiquus. Although all the characteristic pleiocene deer had retreated, the reindeer had not yet invaded that area: it was occupied by the stag, roe, the Irish elk, and Brown’s fallow deer. The whole assemblage of animals, the musk sheep being excepted, implies that the climate was less severe at this time, than when the reindeer spread over the same area in the late pleistocene age, and was far more numerous than the stag. It may, indeed, be objected that the classificatory value of the musk sheep is quite as great as that of Rhinoceros megarhinus; but in the case of the lower brick-earths, the evidence of the latter as to climate agrees with that of the whole assemblage of animals, while that of the former is altogether discordant.

There are no caves either in Britain or on the continent which can be referred with certainty to this middle division. The machairodus, however, of Kent’s Hole, and of the cavern of Baume in the Jura (see [p. 337]), and the megarhine species of rhinoceros from the fissures of Oreston, probably inhabited those regions, while the temperate group of animals held possession of the valley of the Thames, and of that now sunk beneath the North Sea.

The Early Pleistocene Mammalia.

The fossil mammalia must now be examined, which inhabited Great Britain during the early pleistocene period, and before the maximum severity of glacial cold had as yet been reached. The fossil bones from the forest-bed, which underlies the boulder-clay on the shores of Norfolk and Suffolk, have for many years attracted the attention of naturalists and geologists. The magnificent collections of the Rev. John Gunn, and the late Rev. S. W. King, gave Dr. Falconer the means of proving that the fauna of the ancient submerged forest differed from that of any geological period which we have hitherto discussed: and the careful diagnosis of all the fossils from this horizon which I have been able to meet with, shows that it was of a very peculiar character, being closely allied to the pleiocene of the south of France and of Italy, and yet possessing species which are undoubtedly pleistocene. The following list is necessarily very imperfect, since the fragmentary nature of the fossils renders a specific identification very hazardous; and it only includes those which I have been able to identify with any degree of certainty.

Sorex moschatus.
S. vulgaris.
Talpa Europæa.
Trogontherium Cuvieri.
Castor fiber.
Ursus spelæus.
U. arvernensis.
Canis lupus.
C. vulpes.
Machairodus.
Cervus megaceros.
C. capreolus.
C. elaphus.
Cervus Polignacus.
C. carnutorum.
C. verticornis.
C. Sedgwickii.
Bos primigenius.
Hippopotamus major.
Sus scrofa.
Equus caballus.
Rhinoceros etruscus.
R. megarhinus.
Elephas meridionalis.
E. antiquus.
E. primigenius.

From the examination of this list, the peculiar mixture of pleiocene and pleistocene species is evident. The Ursus arvernensis, Cervus Polignacus, Hippopotamus major, Rhinoceros etruscus, and R. megarhinus, the horse, Elephas meridionalis, and E. antiquus were living in the pleiocene age in France and Italy, and probably in Norfolk. The cave-bear, the wolf, fox, mole, beaver, Irish elk, roe, stag, urus, wild-boar, and the mammoth have not as yet been discovered in the continental pleiocenes, as judged by the standards offered by the Val d’Arno and Southern France. They are more or less abundant in the late pleistocene age. This singular association seems to me to imply that the fauna of the forest-bed is intermediate between the two, and, from the fact that only three out of the whole series, viz. Ursus arvernensis, Rhinoceros etruscus, and Cervus Polignacus, are peculiar to the continental pleiocene, that it is more closely allied to the pleistocene than to the pleiocene.

It is also very probable that this early pleistocene age was of considerable duration; for in it we find at least two forms (and the number will probably be very largely increased) which are unknown in continental Europe, although pleiocene and pleistocene strata have been diligently examined in France and Germany. The very presence of the Cervus Sedgwickii and C. verticornis implies that the lapse of time was sufficiently great to allow of the evolution of forms of animal life hitherto unknown, and which disappeared before the middle and late pleistocene stages. The Trogontherium also, as well as the Cervus carnutorum, both of which occur in the forest-bed and in the gravel-beds of St. Prest, near Chartres, and which are peculiar to this horizon, point to the same conclusion.