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Show tlUMAN REMAINS IN CAVtS. [Ch. XIIt. subaqueous origin, especially if it contained shells in regular layers like that of North-Cliff in Yorkshire, described by Mr. Vern on, from which we learn that the mammoth coexisted with thirteen species of our living British land and fresh-water testacea *. But we must hesitate before we draw analogous inferences from evidences so equivocal as that afforded by the mud, stalagmites and breccias of caves, where the signs of successive deposition are wanting. No one will maintain that man, the hyrena, and the bear, were at once joint tenants of these caverns; and if it be necessary to assume that the mud and pebbles were washed into their present position by floods, the same inundations might possibly have caught up the bones -lying in more ancient de. posits, and thus have mingled the whole together in the same mass. More than ordinary caution is required in reasoning on the occurrence of human remains and works of art in alluvial deposits, since the chances of error are much greater than when we have the fossil bones of the inferior animals only under consideration. For the floor of caves has usually been disturbed by the aboriginal inhabitants of each country, who have used such retreats for dwelling places, or for concealment, or sepul· ture. In such spots have treasures been often burjed in periods of disturbance, or diligently sought for in times of tranquillity. The excavations made in Sicily for treasure-trove, in places where no money was ever buried, are believed to exceed in number all the spots in which coin was ever hid during the wars between the Saracens and Christians. Dr. Buckland, in speaking of the cave of Paviland, before mentioned, states that the entire mass through which the bones were dispersed, appeared to have been disturbed by ancient diggings, so that the remains of extinct animals had, in that instance, actually become mixed with the recent bones and shells. In the same cave he found a human skeleton, and the remams of recent testacea of eatable species, which may have "' See_ante1 vol. i. P• 96. Ch. XIII.] IiUMAN REMAINS IN CAVES. ~~7 been carried in by to the marine testa man.f hT he same 0 b servatw· n I·s applicable cea 0 t e cavern f B' the whole phenomena t b 0 Ize, and we suspect T . o e very analogous o decide whether certain relics h . . man, or natural causes . t ave been Introduced by ' m o masses of t must almost -always be a t k f ransported materials, as o some diffi 1 where all the substance . . cu ty, especial1y . s, orgamc and morgani h mixed together and consol'd t d . c, ave been 1 a c mto one br · h effected by the percolati'o f eccia; a c ange soon n o water cha · d · I lime. It is not on such 'd Ige Wit 1 carbonate of ev1 ence that W } ll . duced to admit either th h' h . . e s la readily be in-e Ig anuqmty f th h the recent date of certain 1 t . o e uman race, or os species of quadrupeds. J\ ,, 'il • • |
