Читать книгу Our English Towns and Villages - H. R. Wilton Hall - Страница 6

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1. Man is a very ancient creature. It is a curious fact that we have learned most of what we know about the earliest men from the rubbish which they have left behind them. Even nowadays, in this twentieth century, without knowing much about a boy personally, we can tell a good deal about his habits from the treasures he turns out of his pockets. Hard-hearted mothers and teachers call these treasures rubbish, but the contents of a lad's pockets are a pretty sure indication of the boy's tastes.

2. The earliest traces of the existence of man in our part of the world are found in beds of gravel, which in some places now are many feet above the level of the sea. There, in the gravel, are the roughly chipped stone tools and weapons which those early men used; tools which they lost or threw away. Almost every other trace has quite disappeared. Remains belonging to the same period have been noticed in caves in various parts of the world.

Chipped Flint Weapons

3. Here, in Britain, caves have been found where these early men have left their stone implements and remains of their rubbish. Some of the best-known of such cave-dwellings in Britain are near Denbigh and St. Asaph in North Wales; at Uphill in Somersetshire; at King's Car and Victoria Cave near Settle; at Robin Hood's Cave and Pinhole in Derbyshire; in Pembrokeshire; in King Arthur's Cave in Monmouthshire; at Durdham Down near Bristol; near Oban; in the gravels in the valleys of the Rivers Trent, Nore, and Dove; in the Irish River Blackwater; near Caithness; and in a good many other places.

4. So, you see, the remains of these early men cover a pretty wide area. In the course of ages rivers and seas have flowed over the places where these stone tools had been dropped, and year after year throughout the ages the drift brought down by the rivers covered them inch by inch and foot by foot. Great changes have taken place in the surface of the land, some suddenly, but most of them very, very slowly. The land has risen, and sunk again, and long, long ages of sunshine and storm, of ice and snow, of stormy wind and tempest, have altered the surface of the country.

5. Those very ancient men, who lived in the Early Stone Age, are called Cave-Dwellers, because they lived apparently in caves, and River-Drift Men and Lake-Dwellers, because the roughly chipped tools are found in the drift of various rivers and lakes.

Summary.—The earliest remains of man are found in certain beds of gravel and in caves. They consist chiefly of roughly chipped stone implements. Such celts are found in all parts of England, and in caves in North Wales; in Somersetshire at Uphill; in Yorkshire near Settle; in Derbyshire at Robin Hood's Cave and Pinhole; in Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire; at Durdham Down near Bristol; near Oban; and in the valleys of the Rivers Trent, Nore, and Dove; in the Irish River Blackwater; and near Caithness. These men are known as the River-Drift Men, the Cave-Dwellers, or the Lake-Dwellers.