From W. B. Dawkins 27 August 1871
Iscoed Park. | Whitchurch. | Shropshire.
27 August 1871
Dear Mr. Darwin,
I write to tell you of the success which I have had in following up the clue offered by the bones that you sent me from Rhagatt two years ago.1 Last week we dug out two new caves near the old one which has furnished the platycnemic men, and found traces of the same peculiar race in each.2 One had been used as a sepulcre and contained corpses buried in the sitting posture, fragments of coarse ware, flint chips and a most beautiful polished implement of greenstone. The last stamps the neolithic age of the whole series, and renders certain, what in my account I was obliged to leave doubtful.3 All three caves are close to the ridge of limestone from the cracks in which Miss Lloyd obtained the animal-bones.4 So far as I know these three cases are the only ones on record of a Neolithic interment in caves in Britain, while that in the cave at Cefn makes a 4th..5
A like flattening of the tibia I observed in a collection of bones made from a cave near Oban, by Prof. Turner of Edinburgh.6 I fully believe that this character will turn out to be widely distributed among bones from tumuli, and that taken in connection with cranial form, it will show that the same race spread over Britain and North France during the Neolithic age.
I write this because I thought that you would like to know to what sort of result your clue is leading.
Next week we recommence the Yorkshire Caves7 and I hope to send you a good account of our work. We are certain to get some traces of the state of things during the blank which separates the departure of the Roman legions from the conquest by the Angles.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
County families: The county families of the United Kingdom; or, royal manual of the titled & untitled aristocracy of Great Britain & Ireland. By Edward Walford. London: Robert Hardwicke; Chatto & Windus. 1860–93. Walford’s county families of the United Kingdom or royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. London: Chatto & Windus; Spottiswoode & Co. 1894–1920.
Lucas, Peter. 2007. Charles Darwin, ‘little Dawkins’ and the platycnemic Yale men: introducing a bioarchaeological tale of the descent of man. Archives of Natural History 34: 318–45.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Summary
Describes the successful excavation of caves containing interred remains of Neolithic man.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7918
- From
- William Boyd Dawkins
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Whitchurch, Salop
- Source of text
- DAR 162: 127
- Physical description
- AL inc
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7918,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7918.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19