Fig. 88.—Section through A of [Fig. 83], showing contents of Hyæna-den.
c = flint implements; thick lines above = old floors.
Fig. 89.—Transverse Section through B of [Fig. 83].
1 = red earth; 2 = bone-bed; 3 = dark earth.
The large chamber now turned abruptly to the left, and we gradually worked our way into a small horizontal passage about four feet high. Here there was an interval of from three to four inches between the roof and contents, traversed by stalactites, which in some places formed a smooth undulating drapery with stony tassels, and in others tiny pillars extending down to the débris, and, as it were, propping up the roof. These pedestals (see [Fig. 15]) gradually expanded into round plates of stalagmite, which sometimes met and formed a continuous crust. In some places an infiltration of carbonate of lime had cemented organic remains, stones, and earth into a hard mass, which had to be broken up with gunpowder before it could be removed out of the cave. The excitement of extracting from these blocks their treasures was of the very keenest, for we could not tell what a stroke of the hammer would reveal. Sometimes an elephant’s tooth suddenly came to light, at others a hyæna’s jaw, or a rhinoceros’ tooth, or the antler of a reindeer, or the canine of a bear. The bones were so numerous that they scarcely attracted attention. In one fragment of this breccia, now in the Brighton Museum, are a tusk and carpal of mammoth, the right ulna of the woolly rhinoceros, and an antler of reindeer. In a second, two shoulder-blades and two haunch bones of the woolly rhinoceros, with a coprolite and lower jaw of cave hyæna. As the men removed the large blocks they were brought to the mouth of the cave to be broken up by our smaller instruments. Presently the passage narrowed to about six feet, and presented the following section ([Fig. 89]). On the floor of the cave there was a layer of red earth two feet in thickness, and, as usual, containing a few organic remains and many stones ([Fig. 89], 1). Upon this rested a most remarkable accumulation of bones, and teeth, matted and compacted together, from three to four inches thick, and extending horizontally from one side of the passage to the other ([Fig. 89], 2). Next came a layer of dark red earth ([Fig. 89], 3), loose and friable, three to four inches thick, supporting in its surface a few rounded stalagmites, and a few stalactitic pillars, that spanned the interval of from three to four inches between it and the roof. This bone-bed was about seven feet wide and fourteen feet long, affording, therefore, a square area of ninety-eight feet (see dotted area B [Fig. 83], and in [Fig. 90]). The enormous quantity of the remains of animals present cannot fairly be estimated even by the large number preserved, because most of the bones were as soft as wet mortar. The five hundred and fifty specimens obtained must be looked upon merely as a small fraction of the whole.
Fig. 90.—Longitudinal Section through B and C of [Fig. 83], showing bone-beds.
Dotted area = bone-bed.
We presently passed beyond the bone-bed, and found that the passage bifurcated ([Fig. 83], C and D), the smaller branch going straight forwards and gently upwards ([Fig. 90]), while the larger stretched at right angles from it and passed gently downwards. In the former there was a second bone-bed similar in every respect to that already described, which continued undiminished in thickness until it rested directly on the floor. It afforded a square area of about fifteen feet. The passage was about sixteen inches high and three feet wide, and gradually narrowed until at a distance of twelve feet from the bifurcation a stalactite six inches long reached the floor and formed a vertical bar, as if to forbid another ingress. When this had been explored as far as we could crawl, the larger branch ([Fig. 83], D, and [Fig. 91]) engaged our attention, and we soon discovered a third layer of bones of the same character as the others, and in the same position, excepting that in some places it was in immediate contact with the roof. In width it was six, in length fourteen, and in square area eighty-four feet. From its further end to the termination of the passage there was not the slightest vestige of bones or teeth, and a stiff grey clay rested on a horizontal layer of sand on the floor. Here the passage suddenly turned upwards until it became so small and barren that it was not worth our while to pursue it farther. It doubtless rises to the surface, like the large fissure opposite the entrance of the cave shown in [Fig. 88].[196]
The exploration was resumed the following year by Mr. Ayshford Sanford and myself, and yielded vast quantities of fossil remains. We cleared out the space marked 1863 in the plan, and discovered a flint implement at the point marked d, in [Fig. 83]. My friend the late Mr. Wickham Flower has also worked the cave, more particularly at the right-hand side of the entrance chamber.
The ashes and implements were found in positions, near the mouth of the cave, where man himself may have placed them (see [Figs. 83], [88]), with the exception of the flint implement at d, and an ash of bone imbedded in the earthy matrix between the canine tooth and a coprolite of the hyæna, and cemented to a fragment of dolomitic conglomerate. This was found far in the cave, either at the entrance of the passage B, or in the middle of the passage D. The latter passage yielded the only rolled flint without traces of man’s handiwork. The materials out of which the implements were made were used pretty equally. All those, like [Fig. 84], were of flint; all those chipped into a rounded form and flat-oval in section of chert from the Upper Greensand; while the flakes consisted of both used indifferently. Besides these three typical forms, which were most abundant, is a fourth, in form roughly pyramidal, with a smooth and flat base, and a cutting edge all round. Of these we found but two examples, both consisting of chert. In form they are exactly similar to several hundreds found in a British village at Stanlake, in Berkshire, and to those I discovered in a cemetery of the same age at Yarnton, near Oxford. They strongly resemble a cast I have of one found by M. Lartet in the cave of Aurignac. Were it not for this similarity, I should look upon them as cores from which flakes had been struck. The rest are mere splinters, irregular in form, and probably made in the manufacture of the various flint and chert implements. All the flint implements have been altered in colour and structure, either by heat or, as is more probable, by some chemical action. Without exception, the old surfaces present a waxy lustre (by the absence of which forgeries are easily detected), the colour is of a uniform milk-white, and the ordinary conchoidal fracture is replaced by that of porcelain. Some are not harder than chalk. I have met with weathered and calcined flints in Sussex in which similar changes are observable, and in which the difference in the results of chemical action and heat can hardly be detected. The chert implements, on the other hand, show no traces of any such changes, but are similar in colour and structure to the rocks from which they came—the Upper Greensand of the Blackdown Hills.
All the fragments of calcined bone, with the exception of one already mentioned, were found near the entrance (see [Fig. 83], b), and in a place more suitable for a fire than any other in the cave. I can identify none of them as human. The coarse texture, the structure, and the thickness of one indicate a fragment of a long bone of the rhinoceros.[197] All resemble many splinters strewn about in other parts of the cave, which are not calcined, but were evidently introduced by the hyænas. The calcination may therefore be due to the accident of their lying upon the surface at the time the fire was kindled.