HISTORIC CAVES IN BRITAIN.
Definition of Historic Period.--Wild Animals in Britain during
the Historic Period.--Animals living under the care of Man.--
Classificatory value of Historic Animals.--The Victoria Cave,
Settle, Yorkshire.--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 Caves in Yorkshire.--These
Caves used as Places of Refuge.--The evidence of History as to
Date.--Britain under the Romans.--The Inroads of the Picts and
Scots.--The English Conquest.--The Neolithic Stratum.--The
approximate Date of the Neolithic Occupation.--The Grey Clays.
--The Pleistocene Occupation by the Hyænas.--The probable
Preglacial Age of the Pleistocene Stratum.--The Kirkhead Cave.
--Poole’s Cave, near Buxton.--Thor’s Cave, near Ashbourne.--
Historic value of Brit-Welsh Group of Caves.--Principal Animals
and Articles.--The use of Horse-flesh.--The Cave of Long-berry
Bank.
_Definition of Historic Period._
In the preceding chapter the origin of caves has been discussed, as
well as their relation to the physical geography of the districts in
which they are found. 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 from their occurrence. The caves will be
divided into historic, prehistoric, and pleistocene, according to the
principles laid down in the first chapter.
It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define with precision
the point where legend ends and history begins; but the line may be
drawn with convenience at the first beginning of a connected and
continuous narrative, rather than at the first isolated notice of a
country. If we accept this definition, the historic period in Great
Britain cannot be extended further back than the temporary invasion
of Julius Cæsar, 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 anything. Of the events which happened
in this country before Cæsar’s invasion there is no documentary
evidence, although, by the modern method of scientific research, we are
able to extend the narrative away from the borders of history far back
into the archæological and geological past.
_Wild Animals in Britain during the Historic Period._
During the historic period great changes have taken place in the
animals inhabiting Great Britain. The wild animals have been diminished
in number, and their area of occupation has been narrowed by the
increase of population and the improvement in weapons of destruction.
The brown bear, inhabiting Britain during the time of the Roman
occupation, was extirpated probably before the tenth century. The
current belief that it was destroyed in Scotland by the founder of
the Gordon family in 1057 is unsupported by any documentary evidence
which I have been able to discover; 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 for its fur
on the banks of the Teivi in Cardiganshire during the time of the first
Crusade, became extinct shortly afterwards. The stag was so abundant in
the south of England as recently as the reign of Queen Anne, that she
saw a herd of no less than five hundred between London and Portsmouth.
At present the animal lives only in a half-wild condition, in the
forest of Exmoor and the Highlands of Scotland; while the roedeer is
now only found wild in Scotland, although it formerly ranged throughout
the length and breadth of the country.
The reindeer is proved to have been living in Caithness as late as the
year 1159, by a passage in the Orkneyinga Saga.
The common rat, _Mus decumanus_, is the only wild or semi-wild animal
that has migrated into this country during the historic period contrary
to the will of man. In 1727 it (_Pallas, Glires_) had begun to invade
Southern Russia from 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 certainly before the year 1730, and has
since nearly exterminated the black indigenous species. It is the only
wild animal which is known to have invaded Europe since the pleistocene
age, with the exception, perhaps, of the true elk.
_Animals living under the care of Man._
The fallow-deer, indigenous in the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean, was probably introduced by the Romans, since its remains
occur in refuse-heaps of Roman age, such as that of London Wall, and
of Colchester, while it has not been met with in 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 households of the Canons at Waltham Abbey in 1059.
The domestic fowl has left the first traces of its presence in this
country in the Roman refuse-heaps, although it was known to the Belgæ,
according to the testimony of Cæsar, before the first Roman invasion.
The earliest mention of the domestic cat in this country is to be
found in the laws of Howel Dha,[40] that were probably codified at
the end of the tenth or in the eleventh century, although many of the
enactments may be of a much earlier date. The king’s cat is assessed
at eightpence, or twice as much as that belonging to any subject. The
ass[41] was certainly known in Britain in the days of Æthelred (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, first
appears in this country about the time of the English invasion. It
gradually spread over those districts conquered by the English, until
the small aboriginal dark-coloured, short-horn _Bos longifrons_, which
was the only domestic breed in the prehistoric and Roman times, is now
only to be met with in the hill country of Wales and of Scotland, in
which the Brit-Welsh or Romano-Celtic inhabitants still survive.
_Classificatory value of Historic Animals._
The principal changes in the fauna of Great Britain during the historic
age are the extinction of the bear, wolf, beaver, reindeer, and
wild boar, and the introduction of the 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 these animals enable us to ascertain the approximate date of the
deposit in which their remains happen to occur. And for this purpose
the following table[42] may be consulted:--
ANIMALS EXTINCT.
A.D.
Brown bear circa 500-1000
Reindeer ” 1200
Beaver ” 11-1200
Wolf ” 1680
Wild boar ” 1620
ANIMALS INTRODUCED.
Domestic fowl before 55 B.C.
Fallow-deer circa ”
Pheasant ” ”
Domestic ox of Urus type ” 449 A.D.
Ass ” 800-850
Cat ” 800-1000
Common rat ” 1727-30
Some or other of these animals are met with in the peat-bogs and
alluvia, and in caves, but far more abundantly in the refuse-heaps left
behind by man, by whom they have here been used either for service or
for food.
The disappearance of certain wild species, from the areas in which they
lived on the continent, in historic times, has not been ascertained
so accurately as in this country, and many animals, which have become
extinct in our restricted and highly-cultivated island, are still to
be found in the continental forests, morasses, and mountains. The
brown bear is still to be met with in the Pyrenees, the Vosges, and
in the wilder and more inaccessible portions of northern, middle, and
southern Europe. The wolf still survives in France, and during the late
German war preyed 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 Cæsar, among the more noteworthy animals living in the
great Hercynian forest, which overshadowed northern Germany in his
days. This forest also afforded shelter to the true elk and the bison,
both of which still live in Lithuania, as well as to the Urus, which
was hunted by Charles the Great, near Aachen, and probably became
extinct in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The lion inhabited the
mountains of southern Thrace in the days of Herodotus and of Aristotle,
and became extinct in Europe between 330 B.C. and the days of Dio
Chrysostom Rhetor (A.D. 100), who expressly says that there were no
lions in Greece in his time. The panther also inhabited the same
district when Xenophon wrote his “Treatise on Hunting.”
The fallow-deer was believed by the late Professor Edouard Lartet to
have been introduced into France by the Romans. On a visit, however, to
Paris in September 1873, Professor Gervais called my attention to an
antler 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
undisturbed deposit. It gradually spread into Germany and Switzerland,
until in the eleventh century it was sufficiently abundant to be
mentioned among the articles of food in a metrical grace of the monks
of St. Gall.
“Imbellem damam faciat benedictio summam.”[43]
The domestic fowl is to be recognized on Gallic coins before the
Roman invasion, and therefore was probably known at the very dawn of
Gallic history. The larger breed of oxen, descended from the Urus
type, has been known in France, Germany, Lombardy, Scandinavia, and
Switzerland, in the remote division of the prehistoric age known
as the Neolithic.[44] The buffalo, on the other hand, of the Roman
Campagna, was introduced into Italy, according to Paulus Diaconus, in
the year 596, and the domestic cat,[45] known to the Greeks from their
intercourse with Egypt, became familiar to the eyes of the inhabitants
of Rome and Constantinople as early as the fourth century after Christ.
It is evident from the survival of the wolf, the bear, beaver,
reindeer, and the wild boar on the continent at the present time,
that the chronological table which I have constructed for Britain
is inapplicable to Europe in general. In the present state of our
knowledge of the varying ranges of the animals, it seems impossible to
form any similar scheme.
The historic caves are characterized by the presence of some of these
animals, as well as of coins and pottery, and other articles by which
the date of their occupation may be ascertained.
_The Victoria Cave, Settle, Yorkshire._
The most important historic cave in this country is that discovered
by Mr. Joseph Jackson, near Settle, in Yorkshire, on the coronation
day of Queen Victoria, in 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 a height of about
1,450 feet above the sea, according to Mr. Tiddeman, and it consists of
three large ill-defined chambers filled with débris nearly up to the
roof.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--View of King’s Scar, Settle, showing the
entrances of the Victoria and Albert Caves (from a photograph). A, B,
Victoria; C, Albert.]
The entrances face to the south-west, and open at the bottom of an
overhanging cliff at the point where a scree, or accumulation of
fragments from the cliff above, gradually slopes down to the bottom of
the valley, about one hundred feet below. When Mr. Jackson made his
discovery, he passed inwards through a small entrance,[46] and was
rewarded by finding in the earth on the floor a number of Roman coins,
together 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 of glass,
there were bronze brooches, finger-rings, armlets, bracelets, buckles,
and studs. All were lying pêle-mêle together, side by side with the
broken bones of the animals, and the whole set of remains, with the
exception of some of the brooches, was of the kind which is usually met
with in the neighbourhood of Roman camps, cities, and villas which have
been sacked.
The fragments of Samian ware and Roman pottery scattered through the
mass, as well as coins of Trajan and Constantine, proved further,
that the cave had been inhabited after the Roman invasion, and not
earlier than the middle of the third century; and the rude imitations
of Roman coins were, according to Mr. Roach Smith,[47] 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 considering that these
caves (_i.e._ the group) may have been used as places of refuge by the
Romanized Britons during the troublous times at and after the close of
the fourth century.” This conclusion we shall see fully borne out by
the evidence subsequently obtained. Mr. Jackson gives the following
account of the discovery:--
“The entrance was nearly filled up with rubbish, and overgrown with
nettles. After removing these obstructions, I was obliged to lie down
at full length to get in. The first appearance that struck me on
entering was the large quantity of clay and earth, which seemed as if
washed in from without, and presented to the view round pieces like
balls of different sizes. Of this clay there must be several hundred
waggon loads, but abounding more in the first than in the branch caves.
In some parts 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 several large stones lying near the hole, any one of which
would have completely blocked it up by merely turning the stone over.
I pulled the wall down, and the aperture was now about a yard wide,
and two feet high. On digging up the clay at about nine or ten inches
deep, I found the original floor; it was hard and gravelly, and strewed
with bones, broken pots, and other objects. The roof of the cave was
beautifully hung with stalactites in various fantastic forms and as
white as snow.”[48]
The interest in these discoveries led Mr. Denny, Mr. Farrer, and other
gentlemen to examine the superficial stratum from time to time,
until, in 1870, Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, Mr. Walter Morrison, Mr.
Birkbeck, and other gentlemen in the neighbourhood formed a committee
for the investigation of the contents of the cave, which had been
placed at their disposal by the courtesy of the owner, 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 the mammalian remains that
were discovered, and drew up for the committee the reports brought
before the British Association in 1870, 1871, and 1872, and before
the Anthropological Institute in 1871. Mr. Tiddeman also contributed
a report on the physical history of the cave, which is printed in the
British Association Report for 1872, and subsequently in the Geological
Magazine, January 1873.[49]
_The Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh Stratum._
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Longitudinal Section of Victoria Cave.]
The committee resolved not to begin at the entrance which Mr. Jackson
discovered in 1838 (Fig. 19 A), but to make a new passage, at a point
where daylight could be seen through the chinks of the broken débris,
which there prevented access. Ground was broken on a small plateau
in front of this (Figs. 19 B, 20), which, from the sunny aspect and
commanding view, would naturally be chosen by the dwellers in the
cave as their more usual place for eating and lounging, and in which
we might therefore expect to find the remains of whatever they had
dropped or lost. The gloomy recesses of a cave, indeed, even if
lit up by large fires or by torches, 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 the 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 charcoal,
surrounding the burnt stones which had formed the ancient hearths,
and contained large quantities of the broken bones of animals which
had been used for food, and coins and articles of luxury, as well as
those instruments which were more naturally suited for the half-savage
life of dwellers in caves. As we opened out the new mouth, the angular
fragments disappeared and the black layer rose to the surface,
composing the floor, and lying in some places beneath enormous blocks
of limestone which had fallen from the roof since its accumulation, and
being continuous with the layer in which Mr. Jackson first made his
discoveries.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Vertical Section at the Entrance to the
Victoria Cave.]
It was evident that this stratum had been formed during the sojourn of
man in the cave, and we shall find, in the examination of the remains
which it 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 its proper class, beginning with what at first
sight seems the least promising, the broken bones of the animals that
supplied the inhabitants with food.
_The Bones of the Animals._
The bones of the Celtic short-horn (_Bos longifrons_) were very
abundant, and proved that a variety of ox, indistinguishable from the
small dark mountain cattle of Wales and Scotland, was the chief food
of the inhabitants. A variety of the goat with simple recurved horns,
which is commonly met with in the Yorkshire tumuli explored by Canon
Greenwell, and in the deposits round Roman villas in Great Britain,
furnished the mutton; while the pork was supplied by a domestic breed
of pigs with small canines; and since the bones of the last animal
belong for the most part to young individuals, it is clear that the
young porker was preferred to the older animal. The bill of fare was
occasionally varied by the use of horse-flesh, which formed a common
article of food in this country down to the ninth century. To this list
must be added the venison of the roedeer and stag, but the remains of
these two animals were singularly rare. Two spurs 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, 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 than that time. On the other hand, since
the small Celtic short-horn (_Bos longifrons_) was the only domestic
ox in use known in Roman Britain, and since it disappeared from those
portions of the country which were conquered by the English, along
with its Celtic possessors, the date is fixed in the other direction
as being not much later than the Northumbrian conquest of that portion
of Yorkshire. I shall return to this part of the subject presently;
here I will only remark, that the present distribution of the lineal
descendants of the Celtic short-horn, the small, dark-coloured Scotch
and Welsh cattle, corresponds with those regions on which the Celtic
population fell back before the English. And its survival in Wales, and
until comparatively recently in Cornwall, Cumberland, and Westmoreland,
may be accounted for by the fact, that in those districts the Celtic
populations of Roman Britain were not displaced by the English
invaders.[50]
The larger breed of cattle known in its purity as the white ox of
Chillingham, from which all our purely English breeds have been
derived, was imported originally by the English, and spread over the
whole country which they occupied, until at last the smaller and more
ancient oxen survived only in a few isolated 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,
that from the examination of the bones we may infer that the cave was
occupied before the Celtic short-horn was supplanted in this district
by the larger domestic breed of oxen, and after the introduction of the
domestic fowl, that is to say, in the interval which elapsed between
the Roman and English invasions.
We must now treat of the remains of man’s handiwork in the cave.
_Miscellaneous Articles._
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Spoon-brooch (natural size).]
The ornaments and implements of bone consist of carefully smoothed
pins, and points intended to be fitted to a handle, knife-handles made
of bone and antler; three spindle-whorls made of the perforated head
of a femur; a stud; a perfect spoon-shaped fibula (Fig. 22), which
corresponds with one of those in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,
as well as several fragments, and which when in use was passed through
holes in the clothes, in such a manner that the two ends alone were
visible. These are ornamented, and 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 been
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 in Fig.
24, _b_, is very nearly obliterated by friction against some soft body
such as clothing. A reference to the figures will give a better idea of
their shape and ornamentation than a mere description. Two perforated
discs may have been used as studs. There are also many nondescript
articles, consisting of sockets made of antler of stag, and bone rods
carefully rounded, together with cut bones of uncertain use. For the
identification of the ivory boss of a sword-hilt I am indebted to the
kindness of Mr. Franks.
Besides the ornaments in bone and antler, there were seven glass beads,
five transparent and two of a bluish tint, and one of jet turned in
a lathe; as well as a fragment of a jet bracelet. Among the articles
of daily use were many rounded pebbles, with marks of fire upon them,
which had probably been heated for the purpose of boiling water.
Pot-boilers, as they are called, of this kind are used by many savage
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 ancient hearths, and two or three
grooved slabs of sandstone had evidently been used for rounding and
sharpening bone pins. The fragments of pottery were very abundant, and
were all of the type usually found round Roman villas. One fragment of
Samian ware was ornamented with the representation of a hunt.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Ornamented Bone-fastener (natural size).]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Two Bone-links; _a_ worn, _b_ unworn (natural
size).]
This group of articles throws but little light on the date of the
occupation of the cave. The Samian ware, and the ivory boss of a Roman
sword, merely imply that it was either Roman or post-Roman.
_The Coins._
If we turn now to the coins, we shall find the date to lie within
narrower limits than those fixed by the animals. They consist of:--
Two silver of Trajan, d. 117.
Four bronze of Tetricus I., 267-274.
One bronze of Tetricus II., 267-274.
One bronze of Gallienus, d. 268.
One bronze of Constantine II., d. 343.
One bronze of Constans, d. 353.
Three barbarous imitations in bronze of coins of Tetricus,
circa 400-500 A.D.
In a group of coins such as this the latest only give a clue to the
date, since the earlier may have remained in circulation long after
they were struck. In India, for example, those of Alexander the Great
have not yet disappeared from the country, and in Spain, in the shops
of Malaga, Moorish, Roman, and even Phœnician coins were current in
1863, as well as all those which have been struck since.[51] We may
therefore disregard the earliest coins, and fix our attention more
particularly on those of the Constantine family, and the bronze minimi
mentioned last in the list. The presence of the coin of Constans
implies that the cave was occupied either during or after 337 A.D.,
when he ascended 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.
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 local commerce were supplied by the Roman copper
coins of which abundance remained in the country, and by small pieces
struck after their model, not improbably by private speculators.” This
opinion, which Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., has been kind enough to write
me, coincides with that of Mr. Newton, as well as that of Mr. Roach
Smith; and we may therefore assume, with tolerable certainty, that
the cave was inhabited during the first half of the fifth century or
afterwards, at a time when the withdrawal of the Roman Legions had left
the colony of Britain, whose youth and vigour had been consumed in the
fierce struggle of the rivals for the throne of the West, a prey to the
barbarian invaders.
It is of course conceivable that some of these coins may have been
dropped at one time, and some at another, but nevertheless it seems
very probable that the whole accumulation belongs to the same relative
age. But whether this be accepted or not, it is certain the cave was
inhabited during the time that the minimi were in circulation,--that is
to say, during the first half of the fifth century, or from that time
forwards.
_The Jewellery, and its Relation to Irish Art._
This conclusion as to the date, derived from the coins, is confirmed
in a remarkable degree by the examination of the articles of
luxury. Besides two bronze brooches of the Roman pattern, known by
archæologists as harp-shaped (Coloured Plate, fig. 5), was one of the
split-ring type, with a moveable pin, which is generally assigned to
the later period of the Roman occupation of this country. One type
of brooch was composed of two circular plates of bronze, soldered
together, the front being very thin and bearing flamboyant and spiral
patterns in relief (Fig. 25), of admirable design and execution. The
original of the figure was discovered by Mr. Jackson, and is more
perfect than any of those which we obtained in our excavations. It
is altogether unlike any Roman brooch properly so called, both in
its composite make and style of ornament. A similar brooch has been
discovered at Brough Castle, in Westmoreland, 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 be 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 “late
Celtic.” From its localization in Britain and Ireland, it seems to be
probable that it is of Celtic derivation; and if this view be accepted,
there is nothing at all extraordinary in its being recognized in the
illuminated Irish Gospels. Ireland, in the sixth and seventh centuries,
was the great centre of art, civilization, and literature; and it is
only reasonable to suppose that there would be intercourse between
the Irish Christians and those of the west of Britain during the time
that the Romano-Celts, or Brit-Welsh, were being slowly pushed to the
westward by the heathen English invader. Proof of such an intercourse
we find in the brief notice in the “Annales Cambriæ,” in which Gildas,
the Brit-Welsh historian, is stated to have sailed over to Ireland in
the year A.D. 565. It is by no means improbable that about this time
there was a Brit-Welsh migration into Ireland, as well as into Brittany.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Bronze Brooch (natural size).]
Nor is it at all strange that the same style of ornament should occur
in some few cases in North Germany.
“The conquest of Britain,” writes the Rev. J. R. Green (“History of the
English People,” p. 16[53]), “had thrust a wedge of heathendom into
the heart of the Western Church. On the one side lay Italy and Gaul,
whose Churches owned obedience to the see of Rome, on the other the
free Celtic Church of Ireland. But the condition of the two portions
of Western Christendom was very different. While the vigour of Latin
Christianity was exhausted in a bare struggle for life, Ireland as yet
unscourged by invaders had drawn from its conversion an energy such as
it has never known since. Christianity 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 among the Picts of the Highlands, among the Frisians of
the northern seas; Columban founded monasteries in Burgundy and the
Apennines; the canton of St. Gall still commemorates in its name the
missionary before whom the spirits of flood and fell fled wailing over
the waters of the Lake of Constance. For a time it seemed as if the
course of the world’s history was to be changed, as if the older race
that Roman and Teuton had swept before them had turned to the moral
conquest of its conquerors, as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was
to mould the destinies of the Churches of the West.”
It is impossible that Irish-Celtic art should not have made itself
felt wherever the Irish missionaries penetrated, and especially
in the gorgeous illuminated Gospels, which it was the pride of S.
Columban and his school to have made, and which now excite our wonder
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, which is stamped on the Brit-Welsh art of the same age in this
country. The style, therefore, of these circular brooches, from its
correspondence with that of the Irish illuminated gospels, affords
reasonable grounds for the belief that the Victoria Cave was inhabited
in the sixth century, or possibly later, but before the English
invaders had swept the Brit-Welsh away from the district.
Two other brooches were also discovered in the black layer, which are
even of greater interest than those which have just been described.
The one represents a dragon (colored Plate, fig. 3), with its eye made
of red enamel; the other (colored Plate, fig. 7) shaped, like the
letter S, has its front composed of an elaborate cloissonnée pattern
in red, blue, and yellow enamels, and is of the same design as two
brooches in the British Museum, discovered, one near 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 attest the completeness of the fusion with the bronze.
The style of workmanship is neither Roman nor Teutonic. An enamelled
fibula with spirals in relief, found at Reichenbach[54] (Soleure) in
a post-Roman sepulchre, and figured by Bonstettin, is of a similar
design, and it may be traced also in two brooches obtained by the Abbé
Cochet, from the Merovingian Cemetery of Envermeu,[55] although they
are of more massive and square construction than those of Yorkshire.
One harp-shaped brooch (colored Plate, fig. 1) is ornamented with
diamonds of blue enamel, separated by small triangles of red, and shows
in its Roman design and Celtic ornamentation the union between Celtic
and Roman art. A similar specimen from Brough Castle, Westmoreland, is
preserved in the British Museum, and may have been turned out of the
same workshop. We also met with an enamelled disk (colored Plate, fig.
6), and a finger-ring (fig. 4) of bronze-gilt, ornamented with blue
enamel.
Several enamelled fibulæ in the British Museum, obtained by Sir James
Musgrave, at Kirby Thore, Westmoreland, belong to the same style of art
as those of the Victoria cave, and were associated 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 especially a bronze vase from the late Roman
tumuli, called the Bartlow Hills. They all belong to the class termed
“late Celtic” by Mr. Franks, and are considered by him to be of British
manufacture.
This view is supported by the only reference to the art of enamelling
which is furnished by the classical writers. Philostratus, a Greek
sophist, who left Athens in the beginning of the third century to join
the Court of Julia Domna, the 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) on heated bronze, that these
adhere, grow as hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made
in them.”[57] Mr. Franks’ opinion that this passage relates to Britain,
seems to be more probable than that of the eminent French archæologist,
M. de Laborde, who holds that it relates to Gaul and especially to
“Belgica.”[58]
When we consider the variety of enamelled objects which have been
discovered in the north of England, it seems to be by no means
improbable that the principal centre of the art enamelling was
here rather than in the south; and this conclusion is considerably
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 Emperor Severus built the wall
which bears his name, marched in person against the Caledonians, and
died at York, the account of the enamels may have been brought to the
court of the Empress Julia from this very region, and thus come to be
recorded by Philostratus.
Two harp-shaped fibulæ, obtained by Mr. Jackson from the Victoria
cave, and ornamented with enamel, are coated with silver, and in one
of them two small blocks of that metal still remain firmly imbedded in
the bronze. It is very probable that most of the ornaments were plated
either with silver or gold, traces of which, in some cases, still
remain.
Among the miscellaneous objects in metal are a bronze wire brooch
(colored Plate, fig. 8), two bracelets, composed of twisted bronze-gilt
wire; and one fragment in solid bronze, ornamented with right lines;
one plain bronze finger-ring; two small buckles, respectively 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 but little doubt that this
curious object was employed as a pair of fixed compasses. There were
also iron articles which were too much corroded to admit of a guess at
their probable use, besides a Roman key, knife-blades, and a spear-head
discovered by Mr. Jackson.
The number of ornaments found in the Victoria Cave from time to time
by various explorers is very considerable. They are scattered in the
private collections of Messrs. Jackson and Eckroyd Smith, and in the
Museums of Giggleswick Grammar-school, and of Leeds, and the British
Museum.
_Similar remains in other Caves in Yorkshire._
The Victoria cave is by no means the only one in the district that
has furnished works of art and the remains of animals. The Albert
cave (Fig. 19, _c_.) close by is, as yet, only explored sufficiently
to prove that it contains the same kind of objects; and from that
of Kelko, overlooking Giggleswick, they have been obtained by Mr.
Jackson;[59] as well as from that of Dowker-bottom between Arncliffe
and Kilnsay, by Mr. James Farrer and Mr. 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.
Farrer,[61] prove that the date of the accumulation is late or
post-Roman, one being of Claudius Gothicus, whose reign ended A.D. 270,
and two belonging to the Tetrici, A.D. 267-273, since they would remain
in circulation for some time after they were struck. A bronze pin, in
the possession of Mr. Jackson, from Dowker-bottom, is remarkable for
the head being plated with silver.
The fragment of flattened antler from this cave, referred by Mr. Denny
to the elk, most probably belongs to the crown of an old antler of the
stag, and the remains of the “Canis primævus” of that author cannot be
distinguished from those of a large dog. The bones of the wolf, and an
enormous stag in the Museum of the Philosophical Society at Leeds, are
probably much older than the Brit-Welsh stratum.
_These Caves used as Places of Refuge._
The presence of these works of art, in association with the remains
of the domestic animals used for food, is only to be satisfactorily
accounted for in the way proposed by Mr. Dixon. Men accustomed to
luxury and refinement were compelled, by the pressure of some great
calamity, to flee for refuge, and to lead a half-savage life in
these inclement caves, with whatever they could 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. We may also infer that they were cut off
from the civilization to which they had been accustomed, since they
were compelled to extemporize spindle-whorls out of the pieces of the
vessels that they brought with them, instead of using those which had
been manufactured for the purpose.
_The evidence of History as to the Date._
We have already seen from the examination of the coins, that the
Victoria cave was occupied during or after the first half 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 the latest possible limit to the
occupation of the group of caves to which it belongs, we must appeal to
contemporary history.
During the first four centuries of Roman dominion in Britain, the
spread of the manners and arts of the great mistress of the world
followed close upon her success in arms; and the policy of one of the
greatest of her generals, Agricola, bore fruit in the adoption of her
civilization by the British provincials. The population clustered
round the Roman stations, and cities sprang up, such as Chester, Bath,
York, and Lincoln, between which a ready communication was maintained
by the roads that still remain as monuments of engineering skill, and
which, in many cases, have been used uninterruptedly from that time to
the present day. Agriculture was carried on to such an extent, that
Britain became one of the principal corn-producing regions of the Roman
Empire; and a commerce with foreign countries was carried on from
the ports on the 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 mediæval 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 centre of government, and consequently Yorkshire must have
been, if anything, more completely penetrated with the Roman arts and
civilization than any other part of Britain. The relation of the Roman
conquerors to the conquered Celtic inhabitants was somewhat analogous
to that which now exists between the English and the subject nations
in India. Latin was the language spoken by the higher classes in the
cities, of the army, and probably of the courts of law; while in the
country the Celtic tongue held its ground, and still survives in the
language of Wales. Christianity was probably professed in this country
about the time of Constantine, and became the dominant religion by the
middle of the fifth century, if not before.
Underneath all the outward signs of prosperity during the Roman rule
in Britain, there were causes at work which ensured the ruin of the
province. The policy of centralization, and the very perfection of
the machinery for government on autocratic principles, which brought
about the destruction of the Roman Empire, as in our own days they have
nearly ruined France, bore fruit in Britain in the helpless apathy of
the provincials when 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 forward the inhabitants of the Roman province
of Britain, severed from the Roman Empire, became a prey to the many
tyrants who sprang up, and the anarchy followed so pathetically
described by Gildas. It was at this time that the coinage became
debased, and Roman coins afforded the patterns for the small bronze
minimi of the Settle cave,[62] which are so abundant among the ruins of
Roman cities in this country, such as St. Alban’s.
The invaders of Britain must now be considered. The Picts and Scots
had secured a rude liberty under the protection of their mountains
and morasses, rather than by their success in arms against the Roman
legions, and their raids into the Roman province had been curbed by the
walls and lines of forts, extending, the one from the Firth of Forth
to the Firth of Clyde, the other from the Solway Firth to the Tyne.
In spite of these, however, from time to time, in the fourth century,
they carried desolation into Northumberland and Yorkshire, 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 to Ætius,
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 put into the mouth of the embassy.[63] One
plea for aid, which they advanced, is especially interesting, because
it shows incidentally that the Roman civilization did not disappear
with the withdrawal of the legions--the plea that unless they were
succoured the name of Rome would be dishonoured. Nerved by despair, the
British in the following year take up arms, and, according to Gildas,
leave their houses and lands, and taking shelter in mountains and
forests, and in caves,[64] succeed in driving back their Pictish and
Scottish enemies.
It is very significant that _caves_ should be mentioned in this
account; for the region of Craven is one of the very few in the country
in which they are sufficiently abundant to allow of their being used
as places of shelter on a scale sufficiently large to be recorded in
history; and when we consider that one of the natural highways from
Scotland into central England lies through that district, it seems 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 eldest son of one of the landowners near Settle, was
hidden, along with the family plate, in a Cave close to the Victoria,
in the belief that the Highlanders were in the habit of eating children
as well as of laying hands on the precious metals. The historical
notice tallies exactly with the geographical position, and is not
inconsistent with the evidence offered by the coins and other remains.
The date, therefore, of the occupation may probably be assigned as
about the middle of the fifth century.
This, however, is not the latest date that can be assigned. In the year
449, the three ships which contained Hengist and his warriors, landed
at Ebbsfleet, in Thanet, and the first English colony was founded
among a people who were known to the strangers as “Brit-Welsh.”[65]
From that time a steady immigration of Angle, Jute, Saxon, and Frisian
set in towards the eastern coast of Britain, as far north as the
Firth of Forth, until, in the first half of the sixth century, the
whole of the eastern part of our island was taken possession of by
various tribes,[66] whose names, for the most part, still survive 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 Bamborough
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 colonization rolled steadily
westward, until, at the close of the sixth century, the hilly and
impassable districts culminating in the Pennine Chain, and extending
southwards from Cumberland and Westmoreland, through Yorkshire and
Derbyshire, formed the barrier between the Brit-Welsh kingdoms of Elmet
and Strathclyde on the east, and the English on the west. To the south
of this the Brit-Welsh dominion was bounded by the river Severn, and
included Chester and the whole of the basin of the Dee; while Somerset,
Devon, and Cornwall, and the district round Bradford and Malmesbury
formed the kingdom of West Wales.[67]
The long war by which the borders of England were gradually pushed to
the west, at the expense of the Brit-Welsh, was one of the most fearful
of which we have any record. The English invaders came over, with
their wives and children and household stuff, in such force that the
country which they left behind was left desolate for several centuries.
Worshippers of Thor and Odin, and living 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, and Celtic. Gildas forcibly describes the destruction
which they wrought among his countrymen, by the metaphor that “the
flame kindled in the east, raged over nearly all the land, until it
flared red over the western ocean.”[68] In the conquered districts the
Brit-Welsh were either exterminated or enslaved, and their civilization
was wholly replaced by the rude culture of the English.
It follows, from the nature of this conquest, that any group of
remains, such as those in the caves under consideration, must be
assigned to the time before the English had possession of the district,
and we must therefore see what historical proof is to be found on the
point.
At the close of the sixth century the Brit-Welsh kingdom of Elmet
(in the basin of the river Aire)--a name which still survives in
Barwick-in-Elmet, a little village about seven miles to the north-east
of Leeds--extended over the country round Leeds and Bradford, passing
westwards towards, if not into, Lancashire, and northwards probably
so as to embrace Ribblesdale, and forming a barrier to the westward
advance of the English possessors of eastern Yorkshire. Its downfall
will give us the latest possible limit which we are seeking for the
Brit-Welsh occupation of the Victoria Cave. The two kingdoms of Deira
and Bernicia had united to form the powerful state of Northumbria,
at the beginning of the seventh century, under Æthelfrith, who
carried on the war against the Brit-Welsh with greater vigour than
his predecessors. In 607[69] he marched along the line of the
Trent, through Staffordshire, avoiding thereby the difficult and
easily-defended hilly country of Derbyshire and 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 Æthelflæd, “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 rule.[71] The latest possible date, therefore, that can be assigned
for the occupation of these caves by the Brit-Welsh is determined by
that event. It cannot be later than the first quarter of the seventh
century, or the time when what remained of Roman art and civilization
in that district was swept away by the ancestors of the present
dalesmen. The relics in the caves must have been accumulated in the two
centuries which elapsed between the recall of the legions in the days
of Honorius and the English conquest. They are traces of the anarchy
which existed in those times, and they tell a tale of woe, wrought on
the Brit-Welsh, by Pict, Scot, or Englishman, as eloquently as the
lament of Gildas, or the mournful verses of Talliesin. They complete
the picture of the desolation of those times revealed by the ashes of
the villas and cities which were burned by the invaders.
We have now examined the evidence as to date offered by the contents
of these caves, and we have seen that it agrees with the contemporary
history. It may therefore be concluded that it lies in the fifth and
sixth centuries, possibly the first quarter of the seventh.
_The Neolithic Stratum._
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Bone Harpoon (natural size).]
This occupation of the Victoria Cave by the Brit-Welsh is a mere
episode in its history. It was inhabited by man in the neolithic age,
at a time so remote that the interval between it and the historical
period can only be measured by the rude method by which geologists
estimate the relative age of the rocks. At the entrance the dark
Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh stratum (Fig. 20, No. 4; Fig. 21, No. 4)
lay buried, as we have seen, under an accumulation of angular fragments
of stone which had fallen from the cliff. It rested on a similar
accumulation (Fig. 20, No. 3; Fig. 21, No. 3) which was no less 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 the shaft, there is a
well-cut barb on either side, pointing in a contrary direction to those
which form the head. Ample use for such an instrument would be found in
Malham tarn, some three miles off, and very probably also in that which
formerly existed close by at Attermire, but which has been choked up by
peat, and is now turned into grass-land by drainage. The remains of the
brown bear consist of numerous hollow bones and teeth, and the shaft
of a femur with its articular ends broken off, has been polished by
friction against some soft substance, so that its surface has a lustre
like that of glass.
[Illustration: FIG. 27. Bone-bead (natural size.)]
The question naturally arises, who were the ancient inhabitants of the
cave whose rude implements occur in this lower stratum? From the few
remains which we discovered, they were hunters and fishermen, and the
possessors of domestic oxen, and possibly horses, and in a much lower
state of civilization than the Brit-Welsh inhabitants who succeeded
them in the cave after a long interval. There is no proof that they
used a coinage, or that they were acquainted with metal. The conclusion
that they were neolithic is based on the following evidence:--In 1871
the Exploration Committee examined a small cave about 200 yards off,
in King’s Scar, and obtained the broken bones of the stag, Celtic
short-horn (_Bos longifrons_), goat, and horse, a whetstone, and a
rudely chipped scraper, to which, subsequently, Mr. 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 termed by Professor Busk
platycnemism. This peculiar form has been met with in the neolithic
tumuli of Yorkshire, explored by the Rev. Canon Greenwell, as well as
in the human remains which I have discovered in the neolithic caves and
chambered tombs of Denbighshire; and since it has not been observed
in any human skeletons in this country which are not of that age, it
may be fairly taken to prove that a neolithic people formerly lived in
Ribblesdale. And further, since the traces of rude culture met with
in these two caves are the same as those which characterize neolithic
burial and dwelling places throughout Europe, they may be assigned to
that remote age. Similar human remains were obtained by Mr. Farrer from
the Dowker-bottom Cave, and imply that that cave also was used as a
neolithic burial-place.
The identification of this race with the Basque or Iberian stock, from
which are descended the small, dark peoples of Derbyshire, Wales, and
certain parts of Ireland, must be referred to the chapters on the
Neolithic Caves.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Stone Adze: _a_, side view; _b_, edge (natural
size).]
The reputed discovery of an adze (Fig. 28), of a variety of greenstone
which Mr. Wyndham identifies with melaphyr, many years ago in the
Victoria Cave, may offer additional evidence as to its having been
occupied by a neolithic tribe. It was presented to the Museum of the
Philosophical Society at Leeds by Mr. Jackson, and figured by Mr. Denny
among the remains from the Caves 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 used by
the South Sea Islanders, and especially in Tahiti;--a resemblance
so strong that, unless it had been traced from the hands of the
discoverer into the Museum at Leeds, it would be considered by many
archæologists as an implement actually obtained from the South Seas.
It may have been derived from the lower stratum, which furnished the
equally peculiar harpoon, Fig. 26.
_The Approximate Date of the Neolithic Occupation._
From the position in which these remains occurred, it is obvious that
a neolithic tribe occupied the cave before the accumulation of the
angular fragments, six feet in thickness (Fig. 20, No. 3; Fig. 21, No.
3), just as the date of the Brit-Welsh occupation is fixed as being
after this, and before the accumulation of the two feet of débris
above (No. 5). And in this we have a means of roughly estimating the
interval of time between them. It is clear that the accumulation of
two feet of angular fragments, torn away by the action of the weather
from the cliff, has been formed in about 1,200 years, _i.e._ between
the Brit-Welsh occupation and the present time. If it be admitted that
equal quantities of the cliff have 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
subsequently been disintegrated, it may be answered, that at the point
at the entrance where the section was taken there was no evidence of
any such fall; the angular blocks, both above and below the Brit-Welsh
stratum, being as nearly as possible of the same size, and not lying
with their faces parallel to each other, as would have been the case
had they been disintegrated fallen blocks. Nevertheless this attempt
to fix a date cannot lay claim to scientific precision, and in that
respect is neither better, nor worse, than any other similar attempt
founded on the rate at which a valley is being excavated, or alluvium
being deposited, or on the retrocession of a waterfall, such, for
example, as Niagara. It is merely valuable as enabling us to form some
sort of idea of the high antiquity of the neolithic men who left these
remains behind in the cave.
As the trench (see Figs. 20, 21) begun on the outside passed into the
entrance of the cave, the accumulation of stones above the neolithic
stratum disappeared, and the latter became intermingled 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. The talus also above the Brit-Welsh
stratum ceased at the entrance, although here and there large blocks
of stone, fallen from time to time from the roof, rested on its upper
surface.
_The Grey Clays._
Immediately below the neolithic stratum, a deposit of stiff grey clay
of unknown depth occupies both the entrance and the inside of the cave
(Figs. 20, 21), containing fragments of limestone and large angular
blocks which had fallen 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 finely laminated calcareous
clay twelve feet thick; and below, a similar bed of clay to that on the
surface. In a second shaft sunk to the depth of twelve feet farther
within the cave, the base of the grey clay was not reached.[72]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Section below Grey Clay at entrance.]
A third shaft, at the entrance, however, penetrated the clay, No.
1 of Figs. 20, 21, 29, at a depth of about five feet, and revealed
the existence below of a reddish-grey loamy cave-earth (Fig. 29, A),
containing bones and teeth of the same animals as those from the
caverns of Kent’s Hole, Wookey Hole, and others, which belonged to a
group that invaded Europe before the glacial period, and that inhabited
the region north of the Alps and the Pyrenees in pre- and post-glacial
times.[73]
We subsequently discovered the cave-earth to be from three to four feet
thick, and that it rested on an accumulation (Fig. 29, B) of large
blocks of limestone, the interstices between which were filled with
clay, sometimes laminated and at others homogeneous, as well as with
coarse sand. Below this we broke into an empty passage, one side of
which was formed by the solid rock, and the other of blocks of stone
imbedded in the clay.
As we opened out a horizontal passage towards the cave-earth, A, from
the outside, the talus (Fig. 29, C) of angular débris was cut through
first, which 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 perfectly free. It rested obliquely on the
edges of the cave-earth, and passed gradually at the entrance into the
clay occupying the interior of the cave.
_The Pleistocene Occupation by Hyænas._
The remains of the spelæan variety of the spotted hyæna were very
abundant in the cave-earth, consisting of fragments of skulls, jaws,
and bones, and especially of coprolites, which formed irregular floors,
accumulated during successive occupations of the cave by that animal.
All the bones were gnawed and scored by teeth, the lower jaws were
without the angle and coronoid process (see Fig. 92), and the hollow
bones which contain marrow were broken, while those which were solid
and marrowless were for the most part perfect: and this held good, not
merely of the remains of the hyæna, but of those of all the animals
which constituted their prey. The bones, for example, of the woolly
rhinoceros are represented merely by the hard distal portion of 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 of 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 hyænas. The young would
naturally be more exposed to the attack of those cowardly beasts of
prey than the adult, armed with its long curved tusks, and defended,
not merely by its thick skin, but also by the covering of wool and
long hair which is peculiar to the species. Besides these animals, the
reindeer, red-deer, bison, horse, the brown, grizzly, and great cave
bears, were preyed upon by the hyænas and dragged into the cave. All
these species were discovered within an area of a few square yards of
cave-earth, which passes into the interior of the cave under the grey
clay. They belong to that well-defined group known as pleistocene,
quaternary, or post-pleiocene, which was proved to have inhabited
Yorkshire[75] in ancient times from Dr. Buckland’s discoveries in
Kirkdale, and Mr. Denny’s examination of the river-deposit at Leeds, in
which the remains of the hippopotamus were obtained.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Skull of Woolly Rhinoceros, showing the part
which is not eaten by the hyænas.]
The last and most important addition to this fauna is that of man, a
fragment of fibula in the same mineral condition as the rest of the
pleistocene bones, having been identified 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
possession removes all doubt from my mind, as to its having belonged
to a man, who was contemporary with the cave-hyæna and the other
pleistocene animals found in the cave.
_The probable Pre-glacial Age of the Pleistocene Stratum._
Is this occupation of the Victoria Cave by the pleistocene mammalia
pre-glacial or post-glacial?--before, or after, the great lowering
of the temperature in northern Europe? This difficult question can
only be answered by an appeal to the physical history of the clay and
cave-loam, and to the evidence as to glacial action in the district,
and to the distribution of the mammalia in Great Britain 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 cave itself, ice-scratched Silurian
grit-stones are imbedded in the clay, which abuts directly on the
cave-loam, and passes insensibly into the clay, with angular blocks of
limestone within the cave. They may possibly be the constituents of a
lateral moraine _in situ_, as Mr. Tiddeman suggests, or they may merely
be derived from the waste of boulder-clay which has dropped from a
higher level.
The latter view seems to me to be most likely to be true, because some
of the boulders have been deprived of the clay in which they were
imbedded, and are piled on each other with empty space between them,
the clay being carried down to a lower level and re-deposited. Their
position, however, on the edges of the cave-earth implies, in any case,
that they had been dropped after its accumulation.
There is another point to be considered in the physical evidence. The
deposits above the cave-earth, occupying the interior and entrance
of the cave, have been introduced by the rains, either through the
entrance, or through 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 accounted for on the supposition that it was
derived from the boulder-clay, with which it contrasts in the fact that
it is a loam, of a reddish grey colour, containing a large percentage
of carbonate and phosphate of lime.
Similar deposits, characterized by their red colour, are to be found
in nearly all the caves of the south of England, in France, and
southern Europe, not complicated, as here, by the glacial phenomena
of the district. Had the layer been formed in the Victoria Cave, from
the destruction of the boulder-clay, it would have been identical in
composition with the deposits above.
The laminated portions of the grey clay are considered by Mr. Tiddeman
to have been formed by the flow of water through the entrance, derived
from the daily melting of the glacier which occupied the valley in
ancient times, and he compares it with a similar lamination in the
boulder-clay at Ingleton, which has been described by Mr. Binney in
the neighbourhood of Clifton, near Manchester, under the expressive
name of “book-leaves.” Since, however, similar accumulations 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 the cave-earth, having been
deposited in the interstices between the large blocks of limestone.
In these positions they are of uncertain age, and there is no reason
why some of the hollows which we discovered below the cave-earth (Fig.
29, B) should not be filled with them at the present time by the heavy
rains. They dip at all angles, and are conformable to the surfaces on
which they have been dropped.
The most important argument in favour of the pre-glacial age of the
mammaliferous cave-earth is afforded by the range of the animals in
Great Britain during the time that certain areas were occupied by
glaciers. In a paper read before the Geological Society in 1869, I
showed that those areas in Great Britain in which the marks of glaciers
were the freshest and most abundant coincided with those which were
barren of the remains of the pleistocene mammalia, and I therefore
inferred that this was due to the fact, that the areas in question were
covered by ice at the time that pleistocene animals were so numerous in
the caves, and river-deposits of southern and eastern England, and 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 hyænas, bears, mammoths,
and other creatures found in the pleistocene 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 line. On
the other hand, they belong to a fauna, that overran Europe, and must
have occupied this very region before the glacial period, since their
remains have been found in pre-glacial strata to the north in Scotland,
to the south at Selsea, and to the east in Norfolk and Suffolk. It
may, therefore, reasonably be concluded that they occupied the cave
in pre-glacial times, and that the stratum in which their remains
lie buried, was protected from the grinding of the ice-sheet, which
destroyed nearly all the surface accumulations in the river-valleys, by
the walls and roof of rock, which has since, to a great extent, been
weathered away.[76] This view is also held by Mr. Tiddeman.
The exploration of the Victoria Cave, which has hitherto yielded such
interesting evidence of three distinct occupations--first by hyænas,
then by neolithic men, and lastly by the Brit-Welsh, is by no means
complete. The cave itself is of unknown depth and extent, 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 archæologist, to the
historian, and the geologist, and prove how close is the bond of union
between three branches of human thought which at first sight appear
remote from each other. The discussion of the problems connected with
the neolithic and pleistocene strata must be referred to the fifth and
following chapters.
_The Kirkhead Cave._
Other caves in this country, besides the group under consideration in
Yorkshire, have been occupied by the Brit-Welsh. That known as the
Kirkhead Cave, on the eastern shore of the Promontory of Cartmell, on
the northern shore of Morecambe Bay, explored by Mr. J. P. Morris,[77]
and a Committee of the Anthropological Society in 1864-5, contained
remains of the same type as those of the Brit-Welsh stratum in the
Victoria Cave. In the débris which formed the floor and extended to
an 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,
cut bones, the perforated head of the femur, and other articles. From
this group of remains it may be inferred that the cave was occupied by
the Brit-Welsh, and before them by the users of bronze, and possibly by
a neolithic people, and that it had at some time or another been used
as a place of burial. Just inside the entrance, which overlooked the
sea at a height of 45 feet, a semi-circular breastwork of large stones
rendered the cave habitable, and capable of easy defence.
Mr. Morris’s view that the discovery of a bronze celt, flint flakes,
and coins in this cave proves that all three were in use at the same
time, and by the same people, is not borne out by the published account
of the excavation. There is no proof that the deposit had not been
disturbed, or that the articles were not dropped at different times.
And in support of this conclusion, it may be advanced, that there is
no case on 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. Evans, and other eminent archæologists, that the use of
bronze for weapons had been superseded by that of iron before the dawn
of history in this country. It is otherwise with the flint flakes;
since my discovery of several inside a Roman coffin at Hardham, near
Pulborough, in Sussex, in a cemetery that belongs to the later portion
of the Roman dominion in Britain, proves that they were used for some
purpose at that time.[78]
_Poole’s Cave, near Buxton._
In the collection of articles obtained from Poole’s Cave, in Buxton,
in Derbyshire, I identified, in 1871, in company with Mr. Pennington,
bronze Roman coins, minimi, Samian and other ware, and large quantities
of broken bones of the same animals as those from the Victoria Cave. A
bronze harp-shaped fibula of the type of Fig. 5 of the coloured Plate
is inlaid with silver, and is so perfect that it might still be used.
_Thor’s Cave, near Ashbourne._
A cave also, in Staffordshire, four miles from Ilam, explored by the
Midland Scientific Association in 1864,[79] under the supervision of
Mr. Carrington, has furnished articles of the same kind as those of
Yorkshire. It is known as Thor’s cave, and penetrates the lofty cliff
of 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
occupied by clay, in which, near the entrance, there were thick layers
of charcoal at depths of two, three, and four feet below the surface,
mingled with broken bones and pottery, that indicated the spots where
fires had been kindled. The articles discovered were as follows:--
“_Bronze._--Armlet, two fibulæ of harp pattern (see coloured Plate,
Fig. 5), two plain breast-pins and rings, a curious wheel-shaped
instrument.
“_Iron._--Large triangular fork, arrow-heads, lance-heads, several
knives and a chopper, of singular shapes, reaping hook (?), adze, pins,
two girdle hooks (?), &c.
“_Bone._--Seven snags of deer’s horns, variously cut and perforated,
several others not perforated, curious bone comb ornamented with
circles, flat bone perforated with four holes, two leg-bones carved
at the ends, pin, a large quantity of bones of animals that had been
consumed for food.
“_Stone._--Greenstone pounder, fragments of querns, perforated disk, &c.
“_Pottery._--A large collection of fragments of various periods, among
the rest several pieces of true Samian ware.”
Mr. Edwin Brown, from whose report this list is taken, concludes that
Thor’s cave was occupied during “the late Celtic and Romano-Celtic
periods.” The harp-fibulæ are of a pattern identical with several of
those discovered in the Victoria Cave, and the holes at their upper
ends were probably intended for the reception of enamel. The bronze
instrument, consisting of a disk 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 from the
Brit-Welsh caves of Yorkshire. It is evident, from Mr. Brown’s account,
that there were distinct layers of occupation; but, unfortunately, the
articles found in each were not separated from the rest. One armlet
(Fig. 31), composed of a thin plate of bronze, and ornamented with a
dotted-line pattern, is of the peculiar type which is characteristic of
the bronze age.
The cave had also been used as a place of sepulture, for near “the
pulpit rock,” and at a depth of five feet from the surface, a skeleton
rested in the sitting posture which is so characteristic of neolithic
interments in 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 tabular masses of breccia stretching almost across the cave, and on
one side attached firmly to the wall,” beneath which rested, in the
undisturbed clay, a deer’s horn, rudely sawn across and perforated by
two holes.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Bronze Bracelet from Thor’s Cave.]
Thor’s Cave, therefore, like the Victoria, has been occupied by man in
the Brit-Welsh stage of the historic period, as well as in the bronze,
and possibly in the neolithic ages.
_Historic Value of Brit-Welsh Group of Caves._
The discovery that caves were used as habitations by men accustomed
to the elegance of civilized life, not merely in Yorkshire, but in
districts so far removed from each other as Staffordshire and the
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 of the
social condition of the country during these troubled times, which is
revealed in the sacked and burned Brit-Welsh cities and villas, as
well as in the scanty records of the English invasion.
Subsequent investigation will probably show that caves were occupied
at this time in every part of the country which was conquered by
the English. In the upper stratum of Kent’s Hole, for example, near
Torquay, similar articles, 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 English until the beginning of
the ninth century. The river Tamar then marked the frontier between
the English, and the Brit-Welsh of the promontory of Cornwall, which
represented the dominion of West Wales in the days of Ecgberht.[80]
In the numerous caves of Wales, on the other hand, which I have
explored, there is no trace of inhabitants of the fifth and sixth
centuries, a circumstance that is easily accounted for by the fact
that Wales was not invaded at that time by the English. There would
therefore be no reason for the civilized Brit-Welsh to fly to caves for
refuge.
_Principal Animals and Articles in Brit-Welsh Caves._
The following are the more important animals and articles found in the
group of caves under consideration. The species are identical with
those which I have tabulated from refuse-heaps of Roman age.[81]
_List of Principal Animals and Objects found in Brit-Welsh Strata in
Caves._
+-------------------------+--------+-----+-------+-----+-------+------+
| ANIMALS. |Victoria|Kelko|Dowker |Kirk |Poole’s|Thor’s|
| | | |Bottom.|head.|Cavern.|Cave. |
+-------------------------+--------+-----+-------+-----+-------+------+
| | | | | | | |
| DOMESTIC. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|_Canis familiaris_--Dog | X | X | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Sus scrofa_--Pig | X | X | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Equus caballus_--Horse | X | X | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Bos longifrons_--Celtic | | | | | | |
| Short-horn | X | X | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Capra hircus_--Goat | X | X | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| WILD. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|_Canis vulpes_--Fox | X | ... | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Meles taxus_--Badger | X | ... | X |... | ... | x |
| | | | | | | |
|_Cervus elaphus_--Stag | X | ... | X | X | X | ? |
| | | | | | | |
|_Cervus capreolus_--Roe | X | ... | X | X | ... | ? |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Roman coins or imitations| X | X | X | X | X | X |
| | | | | | | |
|Enamelled ornaments in | | | | | | |
| bronze | X | X | X | X | ... | ... |
| | | | | | | |
|Bronze ornaments inlaid | | | | | | |
| with silver | X | X | X | ... | X | ... |
| | | | | | | |
|Iron articles | X | X | X | ... | X | X |
| | | | | | | |
|Samian ware | X | ... | X | ... | X | X |
| | | | | | | |
|Black ware | X | X | X | ... | X | X |
| | | | | | | |
|Bone-spoon fibulæ | | | | | | |
| (Fig. 22) | X | X | X | ... | ... | ... |
| | | | | | | |
|Bone combs | X | X | X | ... | ... | X |
+-------------------------+--------+-----+-------+-----+-------+------+
All the less important animals and articles are omitted from this list.
It will be observed that the brown bear, the wolf, and the fallow-deer
are absent. 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-heaps in the country, at London and Colchester. The
well-known lines of Martial, however, imply that it was imported from
Britain to Rome at this time--
“Nuda Caledonio sic pectora præbuit urso,
Haud falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus.”
It probably became extinct about the ninth or tenth century. The wolf
obviously would not be likely to be used for food, although it probably
was abundant in the district. The fallow-deer also had not penetrated
into the hilly districts, although it had become naturalized in this
country by the Romans, so as to have been frequently used as an article
of food before the English invasion. I have seen its characteristic
antlers in refuse-heaps, both in London and Colchester, which have
furnished Roman coins and pottery.
The beaver was probably very rare in the fifth and sixth centuries, and
has been met with in no cave-deposit, either historic or prehistoric,
in this country. It was, however, known to the Anglian conquerors of
Yorkshire (Northumbria), who called Beverley (lea, leag-) after its
name.
_The Use of Horseflesh._
The broken bones of the horse, in all the caves above mentioned,
leave no room to doubt that horseflesh was a common article of food
at that time. It was so, indeed, throughout Roman Britain, and after
the English invasion was used as late as the Council of Celchyth,[82]
in the year 787. It was forbidden by the Church because it was eaten
by the Scandinavian peoples in honour of Odin. In Norway,[83] Hacon,
the foster-son of Æthelstan, 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, it was banished from the table.
The present prejudice against its use is a remarkable instance of the
change in taste, which has been brought about by an ecclesiastical
rule aimed against a long-forgotten faith. The rule was not, however,
always obeyed, for the Monks of St. Gall, in the eleventh century, not
only ate horseflesh, but returned thanks for it, in a metrical grace,
written by Ekkehard the Younger (died 1036):--
“Sit feralis equi caro dulcis sub cruce Christi.”[84]
_The Cave of Longberry Bank._
The cave of Longberry Bank, near Penally, in Pembrokeshire, may also
be classed with those which were inhabited in historic times, since
it contained red fine-grained pottery of a kind commonly found in the
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
mussel from the neighbouring shore. Some of the bones are burned.
Several human vertebræ and a metacarpal were probably the traces of an
interment of unknown date; and the two flint flakes are of uncertain
age.
The results obtained by the exploration of the caves described in this
chapter are to be taken merely as the first-fruits of a new line of
inquiry, which is likely to throw light on many points relating to art,
history, and the range of the animals, and not as being perfect or
final. On the continent, no historic caves of importance have as yet
been explored.