This classification by no means implies an exact chronology, or that any one of these ages, with the exception perhaps of the first, covered the whole of Europe at the same point of time, but that the order in which they followed each other is the same in each country which has been explored. There is good reason for the belief, that at the time the Egyptian and Assyrian empires were in the height of their glory, Northern Europe was inhabited by rude polished-stone-using races. And it is a well-ascertained fact, that while the inhabitants of Britain and Scandinavia were in their bronze age, the Etruscans and Phœnicians were in their full power in the south. It is obvious again, that, even in the same country, the poorer classes must have been long content to use the ruder and more common materials for their daily needs, while the richer and more powerful used the rarer and more costly. These three ages must therefore necessarily overlap. “Like the three principal colours of the rainbow,” writes Mr. Evans,[87] “these three stages of civilization overlap, intermingle, and shade off the one into the other; and yet their succession, as far as Western Europe is concerned, appears to be equally well defined with that of the prismatic colours, though the proportions of the spectrum may vary in different countries.” They cannot reasonably be viewed as hard and fast lines of division, mapping off successive quantities of time.
The age of stone is subdivided by Sir John Lubbock into the neolithic periods, or that in which polished stone was the only material used for cutting, and the palæolithic, in which mankind had not learnt to grind and polish his implements. The latter belongs to the pleistocene, or quaternary period, since the palæolithic implements are found in association with the remains of the animals characteristic of that age.
The prehistoric caves, therefore, may be divided into three classes if the archæological method of analysis be employed: 1, into those containing evidence of the use of iron; 2, those containing proof of the knowledge of bronze; 3, and lastly, those in which traces of polished stone weapons have been discovered unassociated with metals. By the animal remains which they contain they may be distinguished from those of the pleistocene age, both by the absence, as well as the presence of certain species which have been enumerated.
From the archæological point of view, two out of the four ages are still represented. Stone is, at the present time, the only material used in the more remote regions of Australia, although it is fast being replaced by iron, which has superseded bronze, and is spreading rapidly over the whole earth. The group of historic caves described in the preceding chapter may be said to belong to the iron age, that is to say, to that later portion of it in which the events are recorded in history.
The traces of the occupation of caves by man in the iron and bronze ages are so extremely scarce, that it is certain that they were but rarely used as habitations. Man had sufficiently advanced in civilization in those times to construct artificial dwellings and tombs for himself, instead of using the natural shelters which were so very generally occupied in Europe by his ruder neolithic predecessors.
Cave of the Iron Age.
In the course of the systematic exploration of caves in the Mendip Hills, carried on by Messrs. Ayshford Sanford, Parker, and myself, a cave was examined in Burrington Combe, near Wrington, in Somerset, which may be referred to the iron age, and which we named Whitcombe’s Hole. It opened upon the side of that magnificent combe, at a height of about 135 feet from the bottom and fifteen from the top, and ran horizontally inwards, the floor being formed of an accumulation of earth mingled with charcoal, and containing numerous broken bones and teeth. The latter belonged to the wolf, fox, badger, rabbit, hare, stag, goat, and Celtic shorthorn. In the lower portion were the fragments of a rude, unornamented urn of a coarse black ware, with the rim turned at right angles, along with a bent piece of iron, which bears a strong resemblance to those found strengthening the corners of wooden coffins in the Gallo-Roman graves on the banks of the Somme. The fractures of the bones, with one exception, were caused by the hand of man, and not by the teeth of the carnivora. The position renders the cave eminently fitted for concealment, for while commanding an extensive view down the Combe, it is invisible both from above and below, and opening on the face of an almost vertical cliff, it is easily defended. If the urn be sepulchral, the interment must be of a later date than the occupation, because it is made in the débris which resulted from the latter.[88]
Caves of the Bronze Age in Britain.
The cave of Heathery Burn,[89] near Stanhope, in Weardale, co. Durham, is the only one in this country that has furnished a large series of articles of the bronze age. It is described by Mr. Elliott as running into the precipitous side of a ravine, at a height of about 10 to 12 feet above the level of the Stanhope Burn, and as being partially traversed by water. Since its discovery in 1861, it has been altogether destroyed by the removal of the stone to be used as a flux in smelting the ore of the Weardale Iron Company, and an admirable section of its contents was therefore visible from time to time. A stratum of sand at the bottom, two feet nine inches thick, deposited by the stream, and containing angular masses of limestone that had dropped from the roof, was covered by a sheet of stalagmite three inches in thickness. On this rested a mass of bones and implements imbedded in silt or sand, and sealed over by a thickness of stalagmite of from two to eight inches.
