§ 4. The Neolithic Horizon.-I must now pass on to the examination of the strata underneath this Romano-Celtic layer, as it may be called. At the entrance, it rested on a talus of angular fragments of limestone (No. 3 in figs. 1 and 2, p. 61), of precisely the same character as that on its surface, six feet in thickness, and running on the one hand into the scree at the bottom of the ravine, and on the other gradually thinning away as it entered the cave, until it disappeared altogether. It rested on a tenacious grey clay (No. 1, figs. 1 and 2), of unknown depth, which fills the greater part of the cave. On the surface of the latter, and underneath a spot where the débris was six feet thick, most curious traces of the cave having been occupied by man, long before the advent of the Romans, were discovered. Three rude flint flakes, the broken jaws and bones of the brown bear, red deer, horse, and Bos longifrons, as well as charcoal, a bone bead (pl. II, fig. 6), and other nondescript articles, were met with. The remains of the animals prove that the folk who then lived in the cave subsisted mainly by hunting, rather than on herds. A harpoon made of bone (pl. II, fig. 5), and of a form hitherto unknown in Britain, indicated also that they were fishermen. It is little more than three inches long, with a head and two barbs on each side opposite each other. The base presents a mode of securing attachment to the handle which has not been before discovered. Instead of a mere projection to catch the ligatures, there is a well cut barb on either side, that points in a contrary direction to those which form the head. Ample use for such an instrument would be found in Malham Tarn, as well as in the mere now drained called "Attermire", and turned into green fields, which are at the foot of the adjacent ravine. This group of remains, in its rude and savage facies, and in the absence of metals, contrasts strongly with that in the RomanoCeltic stratum above, and must be referred to a people in a low state of civilisation. Inside the cave (see fig. 1), where the intervening talus died away, the two layers coalesced on the surface, and became so intermingled that they could not be distinguished. The jaws and broken bones of a gigantic brown bear, and some of the ruder implements of stone and bone, as well as a stone celt discovered by Mr. Jackson some years ago, probably belong to the lower horizon, which, on the whole, may be assigned with tolerable certainty to the Neolithic age. The majority of the remains of the brown bear, which occurred either on the surface of the clay inside the cave or embedded in it to a depth of a few feet, and sometimes associated with Romano-Celtic articles, may probably also be assigned to the lower horizon, although the animal was undoubtedly living in Britain during the Romano-Celtic occupation of the cave. On the surface of the clay inside the caves, the two layers become so confused together that it is impossible to separate the one from the other. In one spot, however, the bear's bones occur underneath a layer of stalagmite two feet in thickness. One of the femora of the brown bear, docked of its articular ends by the action of teeth, is strongly suggestive of the work done by the jaws of the hyæna; but it would be rash to infer the presence of that Quaternary animal in the cave on so slender a basis. The shaft is polished all round to a vitreous lustre by friction against some soft substance such as leather. The same polish I have also observed on the atlas of a bear, and on a broken rib. § 5. The Grey Clay.-The clay which forms the basis of the plateau, and fills the cave, has, up to the present time, yielded no traces of man or beast. The even stratification, and the lines of calcareous matter, by which it is separated into layers as thin as the leaves of a book, show that it was the deposit of water more or less in a state of rest, and not hurrying violently along as in the water-caves under Ingleborough. It must have been deposited by water flowing from the cave into the ravine, or from the ravine into the cave, both of which hypotheses imply the presence of a barrier in the ravine some hundred feet high, or up to the water level in the cave, or that the ravine itself had been subsequently excavated. It is of unknown depth, a shaft of twenty-five feet deep failing to reach the bottom. The dip of the layer towards the interior of the cave implies that it was introduced from the mouth inwards. The traces of ancient glaciation in the neighbourhood, the large blocks of ice-borne Silurian rock resting on the mountain limestone, and the numerous moraines in the valley of the Ribble, show that anciently Ribblesdale was covered with glaciers. It is very probable that one of these was the barrier which is necessary for the accumulation of this singular bed of clay. § 6. Résumé.-The Victoria Cave was inhabited, as we have seen, first of all by a barbarous Neolithic family, and, lastly, after a very considerable interval, by Roman provincials, or, possibly, their descendants of Strathclyde, fleeing from the arms of an invader. Other caves in the neighbourhood, such as that of Kelko, near Settle, and that of Dowkerbottom, near Arncliffe, in Wharfdale, explored by Mr. Jackson and Mr. Denny, have afforded similar traces of their having been inhabited by Romano-Celtic refugees. The whole series stands at a level of at least 1200 feet above the sea, and would not have been chosen as habitations by civilised men except under the dire pressure of necessity. They afford a touching picture of the social condition of Ribblesdale, from the fourth or fifth centuries-possibly as late as the eighth. The Northumbrian Angles gradually pushed back the Romano-Celtic population westward, until at last King Eadberht accomplished the work, begun certainly before King Ina reigned in 547. The exact time, therefore, when the Romano-Celts were finally conquered, or driven away from Ribblesdale, cannot be ascertained in the absence of any record; for, during the war of more than two hundred years, the tide of conquest must have very frequently ebbed and flowed over that border-land. It is, therefore, impossible to give the precise date of the destruction of the Roman civilisation, which must have been maintained, more or less, by the Celts of Strathclyde. Several other caves in the district are known to contain Romano-Celtic remains of the same character as those found in the Victoria Cave. EXPLANATION OF PLATES I AND II. PLATE I. FIG. 1. Bronze fibula inlaid with blue and red enamels. 2. Flat bronze pin with bicuspid termination, probably used as a pair 5. Harp-shaped bronze fibula. 6. Bronze disc, formerly ornamented with enamel. 7. Dragonesque bronze brooch, inlaid with red, blue, yellow, and green enamels. 8. Bronze brooch with spiral ornamentation. PLATE II. FIG. 1. Bone fibula ornamented with incised circles. 2. Bone object, probably a handle, with incised circles, spiral lines, and rows of dots. 3. Bone object, probably a handle, with incised right lines. 4. Similar object, with ornamentation resembling that on fig. 3, but nearly obliterated by friction. 5. Bone Harpoon. 6. Bone Bead. The objects figured in Plate 1, and in figs. 1 to 4, Plate 11, were found in the Romano-Celtic layer in the Victoria Cave, Settle, Yorkshire; whilst figs. 5 and 6, Plate II, were obtained from a lower stratum, probably of Neolithic age. All are figured of natural size. DISCUSSION. Mr. W. MORRISON, M.P., observed that Roman remains had been found near Settle. The land was so rich, letting at £7 the acre, that the locality would naturally be occupied by the Roman settlers; and the discovery of the coins of Tetricus suggested, as Mr. Dawkins pointed out, that the Romano-Celtic articles found in the cave belonged to some of the half-civilised inhabitants left after the withdrawal of the 70 A. L. LEWIS.-On the Builders of Megalithic Monuments. Roman garrison, who, as history tells us, were unable to defend themselves from the incursions of the northern barbarians, and may have taken refuge in the cave. In 1745, a little boy, six years old, had been sent there with the family plate, when Prince Charlie's army advanced into England, it being a common belief at the time that the Highlanders lived on children. The femur of the bear was polished in the centre, and was rough at each end. It had been suggested to the speaker by Mr. E. T. Stevens, the curator of the Blackmore Museum, that it might have been used for rendering skins supple, and thus suitable for clothing. Two forked poles might have been fixed in the ground, and the bone firmly lashed to them, and the skin dragged backwards and forwards over it, as is done by some tribes of American Indians. Mr. CHARLESWORTH inquired as to the nature of the bed of clay in the cavern, and whether it had been found to contain any land or fresh-water shells. Mr. DENDY and the CHAIRMAN also joined in the discussion, and Mr. BOYD DAWKINS briefly replied. The following paper was then read: V.-The BUILDERS of the MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS of BRITAIN. By A. L. LEWIS, Esq., M.A.I. [Abstract.] DIVIDING the inhabitants of Britain into three leading groups, the Kymric-long-headed, dark-haired and light-eyed; the Iberian, dark-eyed and dark-haired; and the Teutonic, roundheaded, light-haired, and light-eyed-the author controverted the idea entertained by many, that the Iberians were the aboriginal race, and that they exclusively were the builders of the megalithic monuments which are found in different parts of Britain. He attributed those monuments to both the Kymric and Iberian divisions of the great Celtic race; and supported his views by a careful consideration of the statistics of the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of Great Britain collected by Dr. Beddoe, comparing the distribution of the different types of inhabitants with the distribution of the megalithic monuments throughout the country; and concluded with an appeal to all interested in the science to collect further statistics. DISCUSSION. Mr. Luke Burke maintained that the only mode in which reliable results were to be obtained in archæology was that by which geology had achieved its success. We must discard all hypotheses, whether historic or otherwise, and treat monuments, languages, myths, and other traditions, just as the geologists treat rocks and fossils, endeavouring, by their careful study and comparison, to evolve from them a stratification of epochs and formations, and thus gradually compel them to reveal their true import and relations. He could not but regret, therefore, when he saw labours expended in researches based, on historical or other conjectural data, as in the case of the paper just read. Mr. BOYD DAWKINS called attention to the impossibility, in the present state of our knowledge, of assigning any prehistoric tumuli or megalithic structures to any one race now dwelling in Europe. At the present time there are certainly two distinct peoples in Great Britain-Teutons and Celts; and it is almost certain that the Iberians are also represented by the dark-haired inhabitants of Wales. It is very probable that the last were conquered by the Celts, exactly as the Celts were conquered by the Teutons; but it is very improbable that they were the first and only prehistoric race that. had possession of our land after the paleolithic age. Till we know all the races it will be impossible to decide who the builders of any particular monuments may have been, by an appeal either to the crania, or to the style of art; because some of the races of which the very names have perished, may have been long-headed, or shortheaded, or have constructed tombs and dwellings and temples precisely after the same fashion as the three races which are known. To invoke the Druids, with Mr. Lewis, is to import into the discussion an element of error, because there is no evidence that they ever existed as a dominant priestly caste either in Gaul or in Britain, and because the views of the antiquarian, by which nearly all unknown monuments are termed Druidic, are obviously unsupported by fact. Dr. CHARNOCK thought a better title for the paper would have been so-called "Celtic Monuments". A megalith was a great stone, a menhir-literally, "long stone". The author of the paper seemed to include under the term "megalith" all the stone monuments in Britain, as the cromlechs, cistvaen, etc. The term "builders" could not properly be applied to the putters up of a menhir. It was not probable that the stone monuments in question had been erected by those who named them; otherwise, they would not have variously designated them cromlech (" crooked stone"), dolmen ("table-stone"), cistvaen ("stone chest"). Mr. Lewis had spoken of the Iberian element in Britain. There was evidence of Spaniards having settled in Galway, but no proof of any Iberian element in England. Mr. HYDE CLARKE observed that the builders of the monuments of Britain must be the builders of the monuments elsewhere. The only ethnological area that is coincident with these monuments is that of the Caucaso-Tibetans. Within that ancient area are now found the megalithic building tribe of the Khasias. In the absence of better evidence, the only feasible solution is, that such tribes accompanied the Caucaso-Tibetans, and that as the Caucaso-Tibetans are represented in situ in the Caucasus, so are the stone-builders represented in situ by the Khasias. Mr. DENDY regretted that, in his illustration of the formation of megalithic monuments, the author had laid so much stress on the races that, in comparatively recent ages, had inhabited the regions in which these ancient relics have been found. Emigrations and immigrations |