Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/280

Rh 268 GAVE buried their dead, the interments, such as those of Aurignac, Les Eyzies, Mentone, as well as of Belgium and Germany, most probably belonging to a later age. Caves containing their implements occur throughout these regions as well as in Switzerland. These traces of the most ancient men as yet discovered in Europe, may with a high degree of probability be referred to the Eskimos. The bone needles, and many of the harpoons, as well as the flint spearheads, arrowheads, and scrapers, are of precisely the same form as those now in use amongst the Eskimos. The artistic designs from the caves of France, Belgium, and Switzerland, are identical in plan and workmanship with those of the Eskimos, with this difference only, that the hunting scenes familiar to the Palaeolithic cave-dwellers were not the same as those familiar to the inhabitants of the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Each represented the animals which he knew, and the whale, walrus, and seal were unknown to the inland dwellers of Aquitaine, just as the mammoth, bison, and wild horse are unknown to the Eskimos. The reindeer, which they both knew, is represented in the. same way by both. The practice of accumulating large quantities of the bones of animals round their dwelling-places, and the habit of splitting the bones for the sake of the marrow, are the same in both. The hides were prepared with the same sort of instruments, and the needles with which they were sewn together are of the same pattern. In both there was the same disregard of sepulture. All these facts can hardly be mere coincidences caused by both peoples leading a savage life under similar conditions. The conclusion, therefore, seems inevitable that, so far as we have any evidence of the race to which the cave-dwellers belong, that evidence points only in the direction of the Eskimos. It is to a considerable extent confirmed by a consideration of the animals found in the caves. The reindeer and musk sheep afford food to the Eskimos now in the Arctic Circle, just as they afforded it to the Palaeolithic hunters in Europe; and both these animals have been traced by their remains from the Pyrenees to the north-east, through Europe and Asia as fir as the very regions in which they now live. The mammoth and bison also have been tracked by their remains in the frozen river gravels and morasses through Siberia as far as the American side of the Straits of Behring. Palaeolithic man appeared in Europe with the arctic mammalia, lived in Europe with them, and in all human probability retreated to the north-east along with them. Ancient Geography of Europe. The remains of man and the animals described in the preceding paragraphs have been introduced into the caves either by man or the wild beasts, or by streams of water, which may or may not now occupy their ancient courses ; and the fact that the same species are to be met with in the caves of France, Switzerland and Britain implies that our island formed part of the Continent, and that there were no physical barriers to prevent their migration from the Alps as far to the north west as Ireland. The same conclusion may be gathered from the explora tion of caves in the south of Europe, which has resulted in the discovery of African species, in Gibraltar, Sicily, and Malta. In the first of these the spotted hyaena, the serval, andKaffre cat lie side by side with the horse, grizzly bear, and slender rhinoceros (A*. Hcmitoechus), see Falconer s Palue- ontographical Memoirs. To these African animals inhabit ing the Iberian peninsula in the Pleistocene age, M. Lartet has added the African elephant and striped hyaena, found in a stratum of gravel near Madrid, along with flint implements. The hippopotamus, spotted hyaena, and African elephant occur in the caves of Sicily, and imply that in ancient times there was a continuity of land between that spot and Africa, just as the presence of the Elephas antiquus proves the non-existence of the Straits of Messina during a portion, to say the least, of the Pleistocene age. A small species of hippopotamus (//. Pentlandi) occurs in incredible abundance in the Sicilian caves. It has also been found in those of Malta along with an extinct pigmy elephant species (E. Melitensis). It has also been discovered in Candia and in the Pelopounese. For these animals to have found their way to these regions, a continuity of land is necessary. The view advanced by Dr Falconer and Admiral Spratt, that Europe was formerly connected with Africa by a bridge of land extending southwards from Sicily, is fully borne out by these considerations. The present physical geography of the Mediterranean has been pro duced by a depression of land to the amount of about 400 fathoms, by which the Sicilo- African and Ibero- African bar riers have been submerged, and Crete and Malta separated from the South-European continent. It is extremely pro bable that this submergence took place at the same time that the adjoining sea bottom was elevated to about the same amount to constitute that region now known as the Sahara. Pleistocene Caves of the Americas and Australia. The Pleistocene caverns of the Euro-Asiatic continent contain the progenitors of the animals now to be found in some parts of the Old World, the extinct forms being closely allied to those now living in the same geographical provinces. Those of Brazil and of Pennsylvania present us with animals whose nearest analogues are to be found in North and South America, such as sloths, armadillos, and agoutis. Those, again, of Australia present us with mar supials only, allied to, or identical with, those of that singular continent. The extinct forms in eacli case are mainly those of the larger animals, which, from their large size, and the fact of their only bearing one at a birth, would be specially liable to be beaten in the battle for life by their smaller and more fertile contemporaries, and less likely to survive those changes in their environment which have undoubtedly taken place in the long lapse of ages. It is, therefore, certain that the mammalian life in the Old, New, and Australian worlds was as well marked out into geographical provinces in the Pleistocene age as at the present time, and that it has been continuous in these areas from that remote time to the present day. For caves of America see Lund, Chron. des Sc. Nat., 2d ser., xiii. p. 313; American Journ. of Science and Art, i. 1871. For those of Australia Owen, Brit. Ass. Rep., 1844; Mitchell, Three Expeditions into Interior of Australia, 1838, vol. ii.; Wood s Geological Observations in South Australia, 18G2. The fact that no caves contain remains more ancient than the Pleistocene age may be explained by the view that the caverns in which the animals of former periods took shelter have been removed by the process of subaerial denudation operating through long periods of time. Prehistoric Caves of Neolithic Age in Europe. The prehistoric caves are distinguished from Pleistocene by their containing the remains of domestic animals, and by the wild animals to which they have afforded shelter belonging to living species. They are divisible into three groups according to the traces of man which occur in them, into the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages. The Neolithic caves are widely spread throughout Europe, and have been used as the habitations and tombs of the early races who invaded Europe from the East with their flocks and herds. The first of these sys tematically explored was at Perthi Chwareu, near the village of Llandegla, Denbighshire, in 1869. In the follow- iug years five others were discovered close by, as well as a second group in the neighbourhood of Cefn on the banks of the Elwy. They contained polished celts, flint flakes,