Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/137

Rh Land Oscillations.

That the lands of Western Europe, subsequent to their submergence in the glacial sea and the deposition of the boulder clay, stood much higher than at the present time, is a matter capable of direct proof. The extent of the elevation was such at one time as to admit of the British Isles being an integral part of the Continent; without which it would be impossible for the fauna of the river-gravels and the bone caves to have spread over the greater part of the British Isles. Moreover, most of these animals found access to several districts which are now islands. In the recently discovered Palæolithic cave in Jersey were found some human teeth, together with bones of the reindeer, woolly rhinoceros, horse, some species of deer and bovidæ, associated with flint implements of Moustérien types a combination of relics which conclusively proves that Jersey was formerly connected with the Continent. (Archæologia), vol. lxxii., p. 454.)

Professor Boyd Dawkins, in describing ossiferous caverns in Pembrokeshire, thus writes:—

"The discovery of mammoth and rhinoceros, horse, Irish elk, bison, wolf, lion, and bear, on so small an island as Caldy, indicates that a considerable change has taken place in relation of the land to the sea in that district since these animals were alive. It would have been impossible for so many and so large animals to have obtained food on so small an island. It may therefore be reasonably concluded that when they perished in the fissures, Caldy was not an island, but a precipitous hill, overlooking the broad valley now covered by the waters of the Bristol Channel, but then affording abundant pasture. The same inference may also be drawn from the vast numbers of animals found in the Gower caves, which could not have been supported by the scant herbage of the limestone hills of that district. We must, therefore, picture to ourselves a fertile plain occupying the whole of the Bristol Channel, and supporting herds of reindeer, horses, and bisons, many elephants and rhinoceroses, and now and then being traversed by a stray hippopotamus, which would afford abundant prey to the lions, bears, and hyænas inhabiting all the accessible caves, as well as to their great enemy and destroyer, man." (Cave Hunting, p. 289.)

I have already referred to bones and teeth of extinct mammalia as having been dredged from the bed of the German Ocean; and also to submerged forests. On the latter point,