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

by William Boyd Dawkins

In eight out of thirty-four humeri the fossa of the olecranon is perforated.

The human remains occurred in the same confusion as at Perthi-Chwareu, and were associated with fragments of coarse pottery, flint flakes, and bones of ruminants. The occurrence of polished stone celts indicates the neolithic age of the interment.

Skulls from French Tumuli.

Both long and broad skulls also occur in the chambered tombs of France, although the latter by far predominate. Those from the Long Barrow at Chamant are dolicho-cephalic and ortho-cephalic, with cephalic index ranging from ·71 to ·78 (Broca), and other similar cases are quoted by Dr. Thurnam from Noyelles-sur-Mer, Fontenay, and other tumuli. In the large sepulchral chamber at Meudon, that contained 200 skeletons, the majority of the skulls were brachy-cephalic, although twenty of them were of the ortho-cephalic type. This mixture may be accounted for, most probably, by the two races, which are clearly defined from each other in Britain, being intermingled in France.

Dr. Thurnam, summing up the whole evidence as regards the distribution of races in the tombs of Gaul, concludes that the two races came into contact in Gaul at an earlier period in the neolithic age than in Britain. And this must necessarily have been the case from the geographical position of our island, which could only be invaded, in those times, by the races in possession of the contiguous mainland of France and Belgium. Both these regions must have been conquered before an invasion could have taken place.

The Dolicho-cephali of the Iberian Peninsula, Gibraltar.

The researches carried on from 1863 to 1868, by Captain Brome, aided by Dr. Falconer and Professor Busk,[127] into the caves of Gibraltar, have resulted in the proof that, in the neolithic age, that barren rock was inhabited by a race of men identical with that which is found in the long barrows and caves of Great Britain.

The enlargement of the military prison on the top of Windmill Hill revealed the existence of a deep fissure, containing dark earth, mingled with charcoal and broken bones, which led into a series of chambers. The upper of these is described by Captain Brome as being completely choked up to the roof with earth, charcoal, and decomposed bones of mammals, birds, and fishes, flint flakes, and pottery. Below were two floors of stalagmite, filled with loose stones and earth, through which a shaft penetrated into a fissure at a lower level, leading into a lower chamber that had a free communication with the surface, since the current of air was so strong as to extinguish the lamps. In this also human remains and works of art were met with. The passages were very complicated, and in some of them a red breccia contained the remains of the pleistocene mammals, the spotted hyæna, the Rhinoceros hemitœchus, and others. This series of passages and chambers is described by Captain Brome and Professor Busk as “Genista Cave No. 1.”

A second, or “Genista, No. 2,” was discovered by Captain Brome opening on the surface near the West Cliff, with its floor covered with stalagmite, under which was the same class of remains as that above mentioned. Subsequently a third and fourth, “Genista, 3 and 4,” were explored with the same results, of which the latter, opening on the face of a vertical cliff 40 feet below the summit, from its difficulty of access must have been used as a place of refuge rather than of habitation or burial. With this exception, the whole group of Genista Caves contained human bones, resting in the greatest confusion, and proving that since the bodies had been interred the contents had been disturbed, either by the burrowing of animals or by the action of water, pools of which were present in some of the chambers. Evidence of the former presence of water was to be seen in the sheets of stalagmite on most of the floors. The same confusion would result, as is suggested by Professor Busk, by interments at successive times. The intimate association of the fractured bones of the animals, and the charcoal, broken pottery, and other traces of occupation, with the human bones, may be accounted for in the same manner as the similar mixture of remains in the caves of Denbighshire. If the caves had been inhabited at one time, and subsequently set apart for burials, the human bones would become intermingled with the accumulation of refuse on the floors by the causes above mentioned.

The bones of the animals associated with the human remains belong, according to Professor Busk, to the domestic ox of various sizes, goat, ibex, hog, arvicola, hare, rabbit, badger, dog, and a species of phocæna, fish, birds, and marine and land molluscs. The pottery is for the most part hand-made, coarse and imperfectly burnt; and the vessels in some cases had singular perforated spouts, similar to those still in use by the Kabyles of Algeria, and some of the Berber tribes. Some of it, however, is of a fine red ware turned in the lathe, and probably introduced at a later period, even, as remarked by Mr. Franks, after the Roman occupation of Spain, to which he refers a bronze fish-hook, the only metallic article found in the group of caves. The implements of bone consist of a needle, and rounded pins and spikes. One cannon-bone of a small ox bears marks of sharp cuts with an edge of metal, inflicted probably, as Professor Busk suggests, “in an attempt to hamstring the animal, as is sometimes done at the present day in the Spanish bull-ring.” It may possibly be more modern than the stone implements found in the same cave.