CHAPTER XI - THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CAVES OF MENDIP

Abstract

This chapter discusses the aspects of antiquity of the caves of Mendip. To mention well-known occurrences of the past, the bones of no less than five Bison, of great antiquity, fallen into a fissure were found. The Banwell Bone Cave is an instance of hundreds of various animals being entombed in the same or in a somewhat similar way. The vertical shafts at Hutton had trapped, among other animals, the mammoth, deer, bear, and boar. All these were proof that, at least as far back as early Pleistocene times, there were open swallet fissures on hills waiting to trap unwary feet or to serve as hunting traps. It is not too much to hope that at some point or other in the Mendip Limestone plateau, all the ages of man and beast may be represented inside of ancient swallets and caves. Unfortunately, those earlier men had no knowledge of script or even picture writing like that of the Esquimaux, though an inscribed bone from Ebbor and a notched tally from Cheddar, with an inscribed pebble from the latter place, show us that it is not certain that such did not exist.