Creswell Crags Museum and Visitor Centre

Discover the past

In this section...

• The Creswell Area
• Exhibition Objects
• Virtually the Ice Age
  • Stone Age People
  • The Natural World
  • Discover the Past
    • Magens Mello and 19th century techniques
    • Leslie Armstrong and early 20th century techniques
    • Excavation in the late 20th century

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• Searching for sites to explore

  

  In just under four years starting in 1875, myself, Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Heath had successfully explored a number of the caves including Church Hole, Robin Hood Cave, the Pin Hole and Mother Grundy's Parlour.

  Our explorations initially consisted of small trenches, usually at the entrances to the caves. If these trenches revealed a collection of fossil bone and artefacts we knew to return to the cave at a later date.

  During my first exploration in 1875, I made a thorough examination of the floor of Pin Hole, with the kind and able assistance of a non-geological friend Mr C.White of Chesterfield. The underlying bed of red sand, which I carefully removed throughout a space 25 feet long into the cave, proved to be very rich in bones.

• Investigating Church Hole

  

  Our disappointment at Pin Hole, as a result of finding little in the way of Palaeolithic Man's tools, was soon reversed during later exploration of Church Hole and Robin Hood Cave.

  Below the cemented cave floor of Church Hole the softer beds of sand and cave earth proved once again very rich in bones. So many broken bones were recovered that my assistant Heath commented that 'out of a cart load (the result of that day's work) there were only four whole ones.' The bones had clearly been gnawed. Tools of ancient man were also soon added to our finds.

  The labourers, we hired for the task, removed the beds of sand with care using pick axes and shovels. We made good progress and in just one day the cave entrance, including two small chambers to each side, was cleared to a distance of four yards in. My assistant, Mr Heath, and I, were soon joined by Professor Boyd Dawkins and during the summer in 1876 it took us a matter of days to remove the remaining cave-earth to thirty yards in.

• Investigating Robin Hood Cave

  The summer continued to be very busy. While myself and Dawkins were entertained at Church Hole, Mr Heath began to make good progress at Robin Hood Cave. Dawkins and I were soon to join him.

  The floor of this cave, like Church Hole, consisted of several beds of sand and earth filling four or five large chambers, the gradual accumulations of a long series of ages. The filling at the top consisted of hardened beds of stone which took some time to remove.

  At times the labourers used explosives in order to reach the softer beds underneath. Dawkins and I often waited outside the cave while the labourers dug through the beds and watched with great excitement as finds were brought out to us. A sieve was set up at the entrance in order that we did not miss any of the finds

• The notes we made...

  

  During our varied excursions in these caves I took it upon myself to take notes of the work.

  As the exploration proceeded into Robin Hood Cave I made a few sketches of the beds and a plan of the cavern.

  Also in Church Hole, as the line of exploration advanced I, on several occasions, went into the cave to make sketches of the beds as they were presented to us.

• Mother Grundy and the hippopotamus tooth...

  Once the exploration of Robin Hood Cave and Church Hole had been brought to a close in 1876, one of the lesser caves remained for further examination, known under the name of Mother Grundy's Parlour, from a certain old gipsy who is said to have chosen it for her home.

  We have to thank Mr John Young for calling our attention to the fact that there still remained in the Creswell Crags an undiscovered chapter in the history of the cave-fauna of the district. He had purchased a tooth of hippopotamus in London, which had been obtained from the Cresswell Crags by Messrs. Duffy and Gain, of Tuxford; and as this animal had not been met with in our previous explorations, we resolved to dig out Mother Grundy's Parlour without delay, the possible source of this specimen.

  On visiting the cave we noticed that it had been disturbed by previous digging, some of which is said to have been carried on by a resident at Creswell in search of treasure revealed to his wife in a dream. However, after penetrating through the disturbed soil, we encountered beds containing bones and teeth in considerable abundance. In a matter of a few days the interior of this cave was dug out.

• The presence of man

  

  Evidence of chief importance is that at Creswell, we have the proof plainly before us of the successive occupation of the caves by men of very different degrees of civilisation.

  Compare the implements found in the lower beds, of the rudest possible construction from quartzite and iron-stone, with the tools from the upper cave earth which show a marked and gradual progress in civilisation. This is indicated by tools made from flint with a superior finish as well as delicately made borers and scrapers and implements of bone; and lastly, that artistic perception was not altogether absent. A well and truthfully-executed engraving of the fore quarters of a horse was found in Robin Hood Cave.

  

• My thoughts on the matter

  Discovery upon discovery at cave sites around the world including those at Creswell Crags provides testimony to the existence of Pleistocene Man. The presence of human remains, if not of his bones, yet of intelligently contrived implements in British and foreign caves in such intimate association with the teeth and bones of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, hyaena, reindeer, and other animals allowed no other explanation than that of contemporaneity.

  These discoveries show us that the Palaeolithic age of Man was one of lengthened duration, the earliest period in which Man was a mere savage, in the very lowest state of culture, but gradually improving to men in a higher state of civilisation who used more perfectly formed implements. And the discoveries in the Creswell caves, where the more finished type of implements has been found above the ruder in undisturbed beds, show that the more civilised man has succeeded and replaced the earlier savage race, or else that this latter, in the course of ages, improved in the arts of tool-making, and learnt, not only to shape the flint more elaborately, but also to make use of bone for domestic and other purposes.