Cave Hunting. Researches on the Evidence of Caves respecting the Early Inhabitants of Europe

Abstract

NO wonder that timid wanderers, peering into the dark mysterious depths of some abyss, should in their awe have peopled them with gnomes and goblins, or fancied themselves at the portals of another world. Well might poetic fancy, stirred by the thousand flashes thrown back from the spar-spangled walls of some vast cave, have called up fairy forms to give life to the beautiful stillness of the scene. Less weird and less poetic, but not less interesting, are the associations gathered by history and tradition around caves. We hear of rude tribes who habitually lived in rocky fastnesses occupying the caves for shelter and protection; and even when these were not used as permanent dwellings, we learn that in troublous times many a clan, family, or individual have had to leave their comfortable homes and betake themselves to the caves and hoies of the rocks. We might well expect, therefore, that in the earliest age, when uncultured man fought for the richest hunting-ground, or struggled with nature for bare subsistence, the caves and rock-shelters should often have been his home.

Cave Hunting. Researches on the Evidence of Caves respecting the Early Inhabitants of Europe.

By W. Boyd Dawkins, &c. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1874.)