A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 'head' are found in the smaller bays by the filling of which the shore line has been modified. Some writers have considered the 'head' to have been formed beneath the sea, but the phenomena which it presents can be more satisfactorily accounted for on the above hypothesis. That the outer edge of the deposit reached the sea may be regarded as certain, and it is even probable that in sheltered situations it might creep out beneath the water and escape destruction from tidal action ; but the seaward creep on the ocean front must have been limited by the zone of wave action before which the advancing deposit was progressively trun- cated and its contents spread on the sea floor. That the raised beach which underlies the ' head ' was formed at least before the close of the glacial epoch seems all the more probable from the evidence furnished by other districts. On the northern side of the Bristol Channel for instance, Mr. R. H. Tiddeman has shown that the raised beach of Gower is overlain by glacial deposits ; while still further north the west of Scotland affords ample evidence of the glacial age of some of the raised beaches of that region. The gap therefore that divides the raised beaches of Cornwall from their modern counterparts, with which at first sight they almost appear to blend, is not only represented by periods in which the land has undergone considerable oscillations of level, but marks a period that carries us back to the glacial age. In that prolonged interval, the earliest part of which was marked by an arctic climate, Palaeolithic man inhabited Britain in association with giant forms of extinct mammalia, such as the mammoth and the gigantic Irish elk, and with the cave-bear, lion, rhinoceros, lynx, leopard, hippopotamus and reindeer. The presence of herds of herbi- vorous animals which browsed upon the pastures, implies the continental condition of Britain, permitting their migration across the plain now occupied by the eastern portions of the English Channel. Subsequent submergence which followed the age of great forests brought back once more the return of Britain to its present insular condition. Although, except in one instance which will be referred to later, the remains of Palaeolithic man and the extinct mammalia coeval with his existence in Britain have not hitherto been found in Cornwall, owing in all probability to the absence of limestone caverns, and deep deposits of peat and gravels from which such remains have usually been disinterred, it may be taken for granted that our county was the habitat of early man and his congeners. His remains however, as already noted, are stated to have been discovered in association with the remains of deer and other animals beneath 53 feet of estuarine deposits at Carnon and beneath 40 feet of similar material at Pentuan. These however would probably be referred to the Neolithic period. Mr. Clement Reid and Mrs. Reid have recently discovered at Prah Sands between the head and the raised beach an old land-surface, consisting of loamy soil penetrated by small roots and containing fragments of charcoal and bone. Pieces of vein-quartz also occur and appear to have been used as implements. Mr. Reid regards these remains as the first record of palaeolithic man in Cornwall. 12
