Cave Hunting

ire.-History of Discovery.-The Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh Stratum.-The Bones of the Animals.-Miscellaneous Articles.-The Coins.-The Jewelry, and its Relation to Irish Art.-Similar Remains in other C

reglacial Age of the Pleistocene Stratum.-The Kirkhead Cave.-Poole's Cave, near Buxton.-Thor's Cave, near Ashbourne.-Histor

of Histor

ound. We must now pass on to the biological division of the subject, which relates to the animals that they contain and the inferences that may be drawn

cept this definition, the historic period in Great Britain cannot be extended further back than the temporary invasion of Julius C?sar, B.C. 55, even if so far, since of the interval that elapsed between that event and the subjugation under Claudius, in the year A.D. 43, we know scarcely

ritain during the

h I have been able to discover;76 the crest of the Gordons, which is supposed to have been derived from the last of those animals slain in the island, consisting of three boars', not bears', heads. The last wolf is said to have been destroyed in Scotland in 1680, while in Ireland the animal lingered thirty years later to be a terror to the defenceless beggars. It was deemed worthy of a special decree for its destruction in the reign of Edward I. The wild boar was extinct before the reign of Charles I., while the beaver, which was hunted

ing in Caithness as late as the year 11

m the regions of Persia and the Caspian Sea. Thence it swiftly spread over Asia Minor, and while it was advancing to the west overland, it was carried by ships to nearly all the ports in the world. It arrived in Britain certain

ng under the

n older deposits. To them, also, we probably owe the introduction of the pheasant, which was sufficiently abundant in the neighbourhood of London in the time of Harold to be mentioned as one of the articles of food eaten on feast-days by the househol

ss41 was certainly known in Britain in the days of ?thelred (A.D. 866–871), when, according to Professor Bell, its price was fixed at the large sum of twelve shillings. The larger breed of cattle represented by the Chillingham ox, and descended from the great Urus,78 first appears in this country about the time of the English invasion. It

y value of Hi

domestic fowl, the pheasant, fallow-deer, ass, the domestic cat, the larger breed of oxen, and the common rat; and as this took place at different times, it is obvious that

ls Ex

circa

r "

"

"

r "

Introd

l before

er ci

nt

Urus type

"

"

t "

, and in caves, but far more abundantly in the refuse-heaps left behind

ed upon the slain after some of the battles. It, as well as the wild boar, ranges throughout the uncultivated regions of the continent. The beaver still lives in the waters of the Rhone, as well as in the rivers of Lithuania and of Scandinavia, and the reindeer, now restricted to the regions north of a line passing east and west through the Baltic, extended further south, in sufficient numbers to be remarked by C?sar, among the more noteworthy animals living in the great Hercynian forest, which overshadowed northern Germany in his days. This forest also afforded s

ler of the animal in the Jardin des Plantes, said to have been found in a refuse-heap along with axes of polished stone. It must therefore have lived in France in the Neolithic age, if it were obtained from an und

m faciat bened

nce, Germany, Lombardy, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, in the remote division of the prehistoric81 age known as the Neolithic.44 The buffalo, on the other hand, of the Roman Campagna, was introduced into Italy, according to Paul

sent time, that the chronological table which I have constructed for Britain is inapplicable to Europe in general. In

f these animals, as well as of coins and pottery, and other ar

Cave, Settl

1838, and which has therefore been called the Victoria Cave. It runs horizontally into the precipitous side of a lonely ravine known as King's Scar (Fig. 19), at

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

the entrances of the Victoria and Albert Caves

n the floor a number of Roman coins, together83 with ornaments and implements of bronze, and some brooches of singular taste and beauty, with implements of bone, and large quantities of broken bones and fragments of pottery. The collection was very miscellaneous; for besides iron spear-heads, nails, daggers, spoon-brooches of bone, spindle-whorls, beads of amber and o

probably in circulation for some centuries after the departure of the Romans from Britain.-"And although some of these remains are indicative of sepulture, yet from the evidence furnished there appears no positive proof of their having formed part of funereal deposits. A more satisfactory conclusion seems to arise in cons

arts a stalagmitic crust has formed, mixed with bones, broken pots, &c. It was on this crust I found the principal part of the coins, the other articles being mostly imbedded in the clay. In the other caves very little has been found. When we get through the clay, which is very stiff and deep, we generally find the rock covered with bones, all broken and presenting the appearance of having been gnawed. The entrance into the inner cave has been walled up at the sides. In the inside were

the late Mr. Stackhouse. They were aided by the assistance of Sir C. Lyell, Sir. J. Lubbock, and Mr. Darwin, Professor Phillips, Mr. Franks, and others, and by a grant obtained from the British Association, and have carried on the work since that time with comparatively little interruption. Mr. Jackson, the original discoverer, superintended the workmen; while I identified the works of art and

ltic or Brit-

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

udinal Section

orches, are not fitted for any other purpose than for sleeping or concealment; and if we add in this case the damp cold clay under foot and the constant drip of the water overhead, it was only reasonable to infer that most of their life was spent out of doors, and that the cave was used merely as a place of retirement for shelter. As the87 trench progressed we dug first of all through a thickness of two feet (Figs. 20, 21) of angular blocks of limestone, that had fallen from the cliff above, and that rested on a black layer (No. 4) containing the kind of remains which we had expected. The layer was composed of fragments of bone and

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

tion at the Entrance

furnished, proof that it is connected with the obscure history of Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries. We will take each group of objects in

s of the

domestic fowl, and a few bones of wild duck and grouse, complete the list of animals which can with certainty be affirmed to have been eaten by the dwellers in the cave. The numerous unbroken bones, some very gigantic, of the badger, and those of the fox, wildcat, hare, and water-vole, commonly called water-rat,89 have probably been introduced subsequently, from those animals having used the cave as a place of shelter. There were also bones of the dog, which from their unbroken condition proved that the animal had not been used for food, as it certainly was used by the men who lived in the caves of Denbighshire in the Neolithic age. The whole group of remains implies that the dwellers in the Victoria Cave lived upon their flocks and herds, rather than by the chase. And since the domestic fowl was not known in Britain until about the time of the Roman invasion, the presence of its remains fixes the date of the occupation as not earlier

olated areas in the north and west of Britain. This displacement of the Celtic short-horn by the English oxen of the Urus type corroborates, in a striking degree, the truth of Mr. Freeman's view of the ruthless destruction of everything Roman and Celtic at the hands of the English. It is clear, therefore, th

the remains of man's

aneous

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

on-brooch (n

nd the shaft and the whole back is more or less polished by wear. Eight articles bear a close resemblance to the handles of gimlets (Figs. 23, 24), and most probably have been91 used as studs, or links, for fastening together clothing. The fact, indeed, that some have the central hole worn by the friction of a thong or string of some kind, coupled with the worn state of some of their surfaces, renders this guess very likely to be true. In Fig. 24, a, the ornament in right lines, which once covered the surface as

en heated for the purpose of boiling water. Pot-boilers, as they are called, of this kind are used by many savage92 peoples at the present day, and if we wished to heat water in a vessel that would not stand the fire, we should be obliged to employ a similar method. Other stones formed parts of anci

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

ted Bone-fastene

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

inks; a worn, b unw

occupation of the cave. The Samian ware, and the ivory boss of a

Co

he date to lie within narrower limits than t

r of Traj

of Tetricus

f Tetricus I

of Gallie

f Constantin

of Consta

s in bronze of coins of T

d the throne; while the date of the minimi has not been ascertained with accuracy. "They abound upon all Roman sites, such as Verulam and Richborough. In size they come nearest to those struck under Arcadius and his successors, and I think that you will not be far wrong in assigning them to the first half of the fifth century.94 The latest of the genuine Roman coins found in this country are those of Arcadius and Honorius; at least, the finding of any of later date is quite exceptional. What the currency was between that time and the commencement of the Saxon coinage it is hard to say. It seems probable, however, that gold and silver had nearly disappeared, and that the needs of a small

robable that the whole accumulation belongs to the same relative age. But whether this be accepted or not, it is certain the cave was inhabit

and its Relatio

oreland, and was figured in the Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society (vol. iv. 129), by Sir James Musgrave, and a second is preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy (492). The style corresponds with that of a medallion on a Runic casket of silver-bronze, figured by Prof. Stevens, and stated to have been obtained from Northumbrian Britain, as well as that of a brooch in the Museum at Mainz, assigned by the same authority to the third or fourth century. It is also to be met with in the illuminations of one of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels at Stockholm, as well as in those of the Gospels of S. Columban, preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and in the "Book of Kells" (8–900).52 In all these cases it cannot be96 affirmed to be Roman, and it is not presented by ornaments of either purely English or Teutonic origin. It is most closely allied to that work which is termed by Mr. Franks "l

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

nze Brooch (

ame style of ornament should occur

y had been received there with a burst of popular enthusiasm. Letters and arts sprang up rapidly in its train; the science and Biblical knowledge which had fled from the continent took refuge in famous schools which made Durrow and Armagh the universities of the West. The new life soon beat too strongly to brook confinement within insular bounds. Patrick, the first missionary of Ireland, had not been half a century dead, when Celtic Christianity flung itself with a fiery zeal into battle with the mass of heathenism which had rolled in upon the Christian world. Irish missionaries laboured

and admiration. The early Christian art in Ireland grew out of the late Celtic, and was, to a great extent, free from the influence of Rome, which98 is stamped on the Brit-Welsh art of the same age in this country. The style, therefore, of these circular brooches,

r Whittington Hill, in Gloucestershire, and the other near Malton, in Yorkshire. All three were, undoubtedly, turned out of the same artistic school, and they may have been made by one workman. The enamel, in all these examples, seems to have been inserted into hollows in the bronze, and then to have been heated so as to form a close union with them, and in some cases where it has been broken, as in colored Plate, fig. 7, small fragments still remain to atte

ltic ornamentation the union between Celtic and Roman art. A similar specimen from Brough Castle, Westmoreland, is preserved in the British Museum, and may have bee

with the same class of remains. Shields,56 scabbards, horse trappings, and other articles have also been discovered in this county, decorated in the same fashion with coloured enamels, and espe

he wife of the Emperor Severus, writes:-"It is said that the barbarians living in or by the ocean, pour these colors (those of the horse trappings)100 on heated bronze, that these adhere, grow as hard as stone, and preserve the designs

strengthened by the fact that under the Romans political power centered in the district between the Humber and the Tyne, and that York, and not London, was the capital of Britain and the seat of the Roman Prefect. It is worthy of remark, that since the Empero

silver, and in one of them two small blocks of that metal still remain firmly imbedded in the bronze. It is very pro

ively of bronze and of iron, and a small bronze flattened pin (colored Plate, fig. 2), ending in two points to which, at first, we were unable to assign a use. When, however, the two points were compared with the circles on the ornaments of bone (Fig. 22), there was

ery considerable. They are scattered in the private collections of Messrs. Jackson and Eckroyd

s in other Cav

-bottom between Arncliffe and Kilnsay, by Mr. James Farrer and Mr.102 Denny.60 From the last, seven spoon-shaped brooches of bone, and two spindle-whorls of Samian ware of the bottom of a vase, are preserved in the British Museum, as well as a bronze needle, and brooches both harp-shaped and discoid, and fragments of pottery. Three coins in bronze, according to Mr. Farre

of the stag, and the remains of the "Canis prim?vus" of that author cannot be distinguished from those of a large dog. The bones of t

used as Plac

flee for refuge, and to lead a half-savage life in these inclement caves, with whatever they could103 transport thither of their property. They were also accompanied by their families, for the number of personal ornaments and the spindle-whorls imply the presence of the female sex.

of History as

of the fifth century, and from the works of art that it may have been, and probably was, occupied at a later time. To fix t

producing regions of the Roman Empire; and a commerce with foreign countries was carried on from the ports on the104 banks of the Thames and the Severn (Gildas, i.). The mineral sources were also fully explored; tin was sought in the mines of Cornwall, lead in those of Derbyshire and Somersetshire, and iron in the forest of Dean, Sussex, and Northumberland. Nor was this material prosperity unaccompanied by the signs of luxury and culture. Numerous villas were dotted throughout the province, resembling in size and plan the quadrangle of a medi?val college at Oxford or Cambridge, and even in ruins astonishing us by their magnitude and the beauty of their tessellated pavements. York was the capital of the province and the

when105 the machinery was broken up. It is therefore no wonder that when the Roman garrison was finally withdrawn from this country, in the year 409, the provincials were left an easy prey to their enemies. Nor need we wonder that they set up isolated centres of government, which we may term communes, in the year 410, in which each city stood out for itself, instead of combining together for the common weal. From this time fo

hire, even if they did not penetrate farther into the south. And on the withdrawal of the Roman legions, at the beginning of the fifth century, their raids were organized on a much larger scale. In the pages of Gildas we have a melancholy picture of their results. In the letter written to106 ?tius, the Roman commander in Gaul, in 446, the Britains are described as sheep, and the Picts and Scots as wolves. "The barbarians drive us back to the sea; the sea drives us back again to perish at the hands of the barbarians," are the words

eems to me extremely probable that the group of caves of which Victoria is one is that referred to. On this point it is worthy of record, that in the year 1745, when the younger Pretender was at Shap, and it was doubtful whether he would take the route through Ribblesdale or by way of Preston, the eldest107 son of one of the landowners near Settle, was hidden, along with the family plate, in a Cave

in the names of our counties. The principal rivers also afforded them a free passage into the heart of the country, and the kingdom of Mercia gradually expanded until it embraced, not only the basin of the Trent, but reached as far as the line of the Severn. The river Humber afforded a base of operations for the Anglian freebooters, who founded the kingdom of Deira or modern Yorkshire; while the camp of Bamborough108 was the centre from which Ida, who landed with fifty ships in the year 547, conquered Bernicia, or the region extending from the river Tees to Edinburgh. The tide of English colonizatio

g a free life, equally divided between farming, hunting, and war, they were mortal foes to Christianity and to Roman civilization. They destroyed the Brit-Welsh cities with fire and sword; and the ashes of the Roman villas, which are to be found in nearly every part of the Roman province of Britain, testify to the keenness of their hate to everything which was at once Christian, Roman,

e caves under consideration, must be assigned to the time before the English had possession

Staffordshire, avoiding thereby the difficult and easily-defended hilly country of Derbyshire and110 East Lancashire, to the battle near Chester, famous for the destruction of the power of Strathclyde, and the death of the monks of Bangor, who fought against him with their prayers. By this decisive blow, the English first set foot on the coast of the Irish Channel, and Strathclyde and Elmet, on the one hand, were cut asunder from Wales. On the other Chester was so thoroughly destroyed that it remained in ruins for nearly three centuries, to be rebuilt by ?thelfl?d, "the Lady of the Mercians," in 907, and the plains of Lancashire lay open to the invader.70 This western advance of the Northumbrians was completed by the conquest of Elmet, in 616, by Eadwine, and the whole district from Edinburgh, as far south as the Humber, and as far west as Chester, became subject to his

we have seen that it agrees with the contemporary history. It may therefore be concluded

lithic

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

e Harpoon (n

than six feet thick, and at the bottom of this, at the point where it was based on a stiff grey clay, a bone harpoon (Fig. 26) was discovered, as well as charcoal; a bone bead (Fig. 27), three rude flint flakes, and the broken bones of the brown bear, stag, horse, and Celtic shorthorn (Bos longifrons). The harpoon is a little more than three inches long, with the head armed with two barbs on each side, and the base presenting a mode of securing attachment to the handle which has not before been discovered in Britain. Instead of a mere projection to catch the ligatures by which it was bound to the11

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

ne-bead (na

John Birkbeck, jun., made the important addition of part of a human thigh-bone. This set of remains, the human thigh-bone excepted, agrees with those in the lower stratum in the Victoria Cave, not merely in the absence of metal, but also in affording signs of a comparatively rude civilization; and we might reasonably expect that the two caves so close to each other, would have been occupied by the same people at approximately the same time. If this be allowed, the thigh-bone may be assigned to one of these earlier inhabitants, the place of habitation being, as is frequently the case, subsequently used for purposes of burial. The thigh-bone itself is characterized by the great development of the muscular ridge known to anatomists as the linea aspera, implying the peculiar flatness of shin which is te

which are descended the small, dark peoples of Derbyshire, Wales, and certa

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

: a, side view; b,

s of Craven, and presents characters that have not, to my knowledge, been met with in any other neolithic implement found in Great Britain: one end being roughly chipped for insertion into a socket, while the other is carefully ground into a chisel edge. In these respects, as Mr. O'Callaghan and Mr. Denny have observed, it bears a striking resemblance to the stone adzes use

Date of the Neol

been weathered away in equal times, it will follow that the thickness of six feet between the Brit-Welsh stratum and that under examination was formed during a time thrice as long, or 3,600 years; and that consequently the date of the earlier occupation of the cave by man is fixed as being about 4,800, or 5,000 years ago. It is perfectly true, that in ancient times the frosts may have been more intense than they are now, and therefore that the rate of weathering may have been faster. To the objection that possibly a large mass of cliff may have tumbled down at one time, and subsequently116 been disintegrated, it may be answered, that at the point at the entrance where the section was taken there was no evidence o

ntermingled with the Brit-Welsh layer above, so that it would have been impossible to distinguish the one from the other had not the talus marked the interval in the plateau outside.

rey C

allen from the roof. A shaft sunk to a depth of twenty-five feet near the entrance failed to arrive at the bottom, but presented the following section in descending order: stiff grey clay with layer of stalagmite six feet thick; a

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

n below Grey Cl

sh-grey loamy cave-earth (Fig. 29, A), containing bones and teeth of the same animals as those from the caverns118 of Kent's Hole, Wookey Hole, and others, which b

s of limestone, the interstices between which were filled with clay, sometimes laminated and at others homogeneous, as well as with coarse sand.

h gradually became more and more clayey in its lower portions: at one point, D, there were several glaciated blocks, some imbedded in clay and others p

ene Occupati

f the shaft of the humerus, and of the solid bones of the ulna and radius, while the only portions of skull are the solid pedestal offered by the nasal bones on which the front horn was supported, and a few smaller fragments. The pedestal in question is depicted by the dark shaded portion of120 Fig. 30, the outline of the skull and lower jaw being taken from one of Professor Brandt's plates of the Woolly Rhinoceros found in Siberia.74 The teeth which imply the presence of the mammoth (milk molars 3 and 4) were those of a young individual, as is very generally the case in caves which have been occupied by hy?nas. The young would naturally be more exposed to the attack of those cowardly beasts of prey than the adult, armed with its long curved tu

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

oceros, showing the part whic

tified by Professor Busk with an unusually massive recent human fibula. Although the fragment is very small, its comparison with the abnormal specimen in Professor Busk's p

lacial Age of the

tain during the pleistocene period. Glaciers have left their marks in nearly every part of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and especially in the neighbourhood of the Victoria Cave. The hill-sides around are studded with large ice-borne Silurian rocks; boulder-clay occupies nearly every hollow on the elevated plateaux; and moraines are to be observed in nearly every valley. At the entrance of the

ere imbedded, and are piled on each other with empty space between them, the clay122 being carried down to a lower level and re-depos

gh the crevices which penetrate the roof, and consist of a finer detritus washed out of the boulder-clay on the surface at a higher level. The cave-earth, however, although it has been introduced in the same way, cannot be

ce, and southern Europe, not complicated, as here, by the glacial phenomena of the district. Had the layer been formed in the

pressive name of "book-leaves." Since, however, similar accumulations123 are being formed at the present time at the bottom of pools in many caves, as, for example, in that of Ingleborough, they cannot be taken to imply a glacial origin. They are not found merely in one spot in the Victoria Cave, but are scattered, more or less, through the general mass of the clay, and occur abundantly even below th

on the continent. In a map published in 1871, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and the greater portion of Yorkshire are represented as being one of these barren areas, in which no pleistocene mammalia have been observed. It is obvious that the hy?nas, bears, mammoths, and other creatures found in the pleistocene124 stratum, could not have occupied the district when it was covered by ice; and had they lived soon after the retreat of the ice-sheet, their remains would occur in the river-gravels, from which they are absent throughout a large area to the north of a line drawn between Chester and York, whilst they occur abundantly in the glacial river deposits south of that li

, and the mere removal of so much earth and clay as it is at present known to contain will be a labour of years. The results of the exploration, up to the present time, are of almost equal value to the arch?ologist, to the historian, and the geologist, and prove

rkhead

unknown depth below, a coin of Domitian, "a trefoil-shaped Roman fibula," a pin, ornamented with green enamel, and a bronze ring were discovered in association with broken remains of domestic animals-Bos longifrons, pig and goat, dog and horse, as well as stag, roe, wild goose, and many human bones. A bronze celt and a spear-head were also found, at a depth respectively of five and six feet, and a flint flake at a depth of seven feet; and fragments of pottery, a bead of amber,

n record of the discovery of bronze celts or swords along with any Roman coins under conditions which would prove that they were in use at the same time. Had such been the case the ruins of the many Roman villas and cities, destroyed by the English, would have furnished some examples. At Silchester, even such a rare article as a Roman eagle has been met with. There is every reason to believe with Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Ev

Cave, ne

onze Roman coins, minimi, Samian and other ware, and large quantities of127 broken bones of the same animals as those from the Victoria Cave.

ve, near

limestone, on the south side of the river Manifold, at a height of about 254 feet from the bottom of the valley, and about 900 feet above the sea, running horizontally inwards, and being divided inside by a row of buttressed columns into two noble gothic aisles. Its bottom was

e coloured Plate, Fig. 5), two plain breast-pin

s, several knives and a chopper, of singular shapes,

curious bone comb ornamented with circles, flat bone perforated with128 four holes, two leg-bon

der, fragments of quern

ents of various periods, among the re

k cut out into a flamboyant pattern like that of the round brooch from the Victoria Cave (Fig. 25), and joined to a central stem ornamented with waved lines, was intended for suspension; possibly, as Mr. Carrington suggests, it may have been used for spinning. It is a remarkably fine example of Brit-Welsh or late Celtic art. The bone comb is of the same type as those fro

rments in129 Europe. It had also been entered by man even before any of these accumulations. "In the south recess, behind and below any traces of man's occupation, the diggers came upon a kind of flooring of tabu

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

e Bracelet fro

d by man in the Brit-Welsh stage of the historic period, as

of Brit-Welsh

e extreme north of Lancashire, during the fifth and sixth centuries, implies the pressure of a far-reaching calamity by which they were driven from their homes. It completes and rounds off the story

with the exception of the enamels, have been discovered. There, however, the occupation may have been considerably later than in the caves of Yorkshire, because the Roman civilization was not supplanted in Devonshire by the Eng

fifth and sixth centuries, a circumstance that is easily accounted for by the fact that Wales was not invaded at t

and Articles in

the group of caves under consideration. The species are identical w

s and Objects found in B

ictoria Ke

m.

.

a

og X X

X X X

se X X

Short-horn X X

X X

X ... X

X ... X

X ...

X ... X

tions X X

bronze X X

ith silver X X

X X X

... X

X X

22) X X X

X X

bsent. The brown bear was probably at this time very rare in Britain, since its remains have been met with in but two out of the many Roman refuse-h

pr?buit urso, Haud falsa p

fallow-deer also had not penetrated into132 the hilly districts, although it had become naturalized in this country by the Romans, so as to have been frequently used as an ar

o cave-deposit, either historic or prehistoric, in this country. It was, however, known to the

of Hor

in. In Norway,83 Hacon, the foster-son of ?thelstan, was compelled to eat it by the bonders, in 956, and the revolt of the bonders which ended in the bloody battle of Stikklestadt, in which Olaf met his death, in 1030, was caused by his cruelties to the eaters of horseflesh. As Christianity prevailed over the worship of Thor and Odin, it133 was banished from the table. The presen

caro dulcis sub

of Longbe

e ruins of Roman villas. It was explored by the Rev. H. H. Winwood, in 1866, in whose collection are the remains of the Bos longifrons, goat, badger, dog, as well as shells of oyster, large limpets and mus

a new line of inquiry, which is likely to throw light on many points relating to art, history, and the range of the animals,