Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/159

 CHAPTER VI

ALTHOUGH some of the Pleistocene fauna (including the mammoth, reindeer, and Irish elk) found their way as far west as Ireland, no evidence of the presence of Palæolithic man in that island has yet been discovered a fact which may possibly be due to want of adequate exploration. But in present circumstances it suggests that the westward movement of the continental fauna had been intercepted by alterations in the level of sea and land. The Irish Channel being 38 fathoms deep, while that between England and the Continent is only 20 fathoms, it would follow that the former would become sea during a process of gradual submergence long before the latter. When the British Isles stood at their maximum elevation continental mammalia could roam as far as the Atlantic without any water impediment, but as the gradual subsidence progressed the Irish Channel would be first blocked against them ; so that for a considerable interval of time animals could still come to Britain but not to Ireland. From researches carried on some time ago in the cave of Ballynamintra, Co. Waterford, it has been shown that the Irish elk was contemporary with Neolithic man in that neighbourhood. The cave is one of a series in the limestone tract which stretches from the Blackwater River to Dungarvan Bay. The entrance is about 12 feet above the flat ground in front, and extends for 30 feet as a horizontal tunnel 10 feet wide, after which it widens and the