Page:The history of Little England beyond Wales and the non-Kymric colony settled in Pembrokeshire.pdf/39

Rh uniform surface, which he polished; on the broad end he made his cutting edge, while he fixed the narrow extremity into a wooden handle. To us this seems an obvious arrangement, but in reality it was a discovery which revolutionized the world.

It is impossible to say from whence this new people came, but as they brought with them sheep and goats, wheat and barley, which are indigenous to Central Asia, we must conclude either that they sprang originally from that land, or in their journeyings had passed through it, or had come across another race which used Central Asian products. This latter, certainly, was not the palæolithic man of Europe. Whether the neolithic men came into Britain dry-footed, or across an isthmus which connected Dover and Calais, is a moot point; but the consensus of opinion is in favour of the insularity of Great Britain at their advent. One point is very clear, namely, that the great depression which so altered the geography of North-western Europe continued after the arrival of neolithic man; nay, subsequently to the colonization by him of such remote districts as Western Wales. There seems little doubt that large districts which were inhabited by this people are now covered by the Bristol Channel. They found the land higher than it now is, but during their occupation it sank some twelve feet lower; then came a reaction, and it was uplifted to the present level.

On the English coast, immediately opposed te Pembrokeshire, outside Northam pebble ridge, the submerged land is to be easily traced; on it flint flakes have been found extending over a considerable area. Near the baths, at the watering-place Westward Ho, charcoal, and bones, both burnt, and split by man for marrow, have been dug up at a spot now covered by 23 feet of water at spring tide. The bones were those of bos longifrons (the small domestic ox of neolithic times), goat, swine, and roebuck; with these were shells of oyster, cockle, periwinkle, hen cockle, and furrows. More direct traces of man, however, came to hand in the shape of a piece of pottery, with a vandyked pattern on it, and a millstone grit pounder. These various articles exactly represent what we commonly find in the neolithic deposits of Pembrokeshire.

Again, on the Carmarthenshire coast, the Dean of St. David’s informs me, very large quantities of bones are recovered from below the tide mark. Of these he brought me a sample which consisted of a goat’s head with long horn cores. This deposit I should without hesitation attribute to neolithic times. In Pembrokeshire we have, as will be presently seen, numerous relics of this period; and they are almost always on the coast, or on high land within sight of it. Our shores are surrounded by a belt of submerged land, and it seems probable that the neolithic incomers first settled on this, and were gradually driven back by the encroaching ocean to the line where we now find their camps, kitchen middens, flint factories, and burial places. If my supposition is correct such relics as remain in Pembrokeshire must be attributed to the later neolithic times, and this was the conclusion the late Professor Rolleston arrived at. Perhaps the earliest relic of neolithic man hitherto discovered in Pembrokeshire is a flint chip found by Dr. Hicks in the neighbourhood of St. David’s. Under Whitesand Bay lies the tail of a pleistocene moraine composed of gravel, curried and scratched by ice. On this is superimposed till clay, while on the clay lies the submerged peat, &c., in which grew the trees of the "sunken forest." Dr. Hicks, in October, 1883, kindly sent a box of specimens for exhibition in the Tenby Museum; among these was a flint chip which he found in this clay on the edge of the submerged land. This flake must have been manipulated by man, and dropped after the pleistocene moraine had been covered with clay, and perhaps before the lower part of that clay had become a peat bog; certainly before it was submerged by the sea. So far as I know no other work of man’s hands has come to light in the submerged land of Pembrokeshire. But many bestial relics of that period have been found. For instance, Dr. Hicks discovered in the Whitesand bed, a perfect jaw of the brown bear (ursus arctos), and many antlers of red deer (cervus elephus). A fine head of the