The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-26 00:00:00

ARCJIXOLOGICAL DISCOVERY,

A very interesting discovery has, during the past
autumn, been male at Normanby, near Middlesborough, in,
the North Riding of Yorkshire. In order to facilitate cer-
tain of the mining operations carried on at that place by
the Messrs. Bell, it became necessary to form a new road-
way eta lower level than that hitherto in use, itself lower
by four or five feet than the modern surface in the
vicinity. During the process of the necessary excavations
the attention of the enginees and workmen was drawn
to the presence of human remains. There were many
fragments of ancient pottery, portions of two broken
queens, the upper stone of a third in an unfinished
state, and eventually even a portion of a human jaw, with
three teeth. The bones were principally those of the oxs
and, judging from the form of a skull obtained in some
degree of integrity, of bos longift ohs. Some were of largo
dimensions, and those which had contained marrow were
with few exceptions, broken across. There were besides
numerous bones of the sheep and deer, and a few of the
swine. Not a few of the shoulder-blades of the sheep or
deer were so small as to suggest the presence in Cleveland,
at the time to which the deposit belonged, of very small
varieties of the breeds represented. On none of these
bones did there appear to be any signs of gnawing—per-
haps a negative evidence of the absence of any species of
dog
at the time. There were also many small bones of
various kinds, but too much decayed to admit of any at-
tempt to decide to what creatures they had originally be-
longed. There was one, however, at least, which testified
to the presence of articles of food derived from the sea (ex-
clusive of others to be presently mentioned) ; and that was
a bone from the flapper, or breast-fish of bbl either
a seal or a porpoise. some , Pro Y
the feeuwt of
p artthse largerpruen t bonesing a
showed signs of cutting,
rough, jagged edge, strongly suggesting that the cut-
ting instrument employed had been
tmen
circular,eoa tava
teter dsr ,es olay
their hollow parts lined, with earthy phosphate
rude. Besides these cut bones, ono other,very
blunt or very
bone of a sheep or deer, was bored throumhtouhefeettirhl
as well as longitudinally, the hole being perfectly
All the bones, without any exemption, were
assumedon' which
after a few hours of exposure to the air
a beautiful blue tint. Besides the bones just noticed there
very
was a layer •of shells—namely, those of the common
sea
mussel and the ordinary periwinkle—of six or eight inches
in thickness, 14 or 15 feet in length, and of considerable
but undetermined width, All the mussel shells had been
opened, and in no one instance did two still united at the
hinge present themselves. This shell-bed lay at a depth
of 12 to 14 feet below the old road, and, therefore, 17
to 19 feet below the modern surface. The bones, pot-
tery,tand querns were most abundantly met with in the
part of the deposit just above the shell-bed, and intermingled
with them were twigs, leaves, sticks, chips, knots, or broken.
branches of trees, charcoal, a specimen or two cf wrought
wood (pegs or the like), hazel-nuts, acorns, ling, moss,
bracken, sedges, rushes, a few seeds of plants, besides wing-
cases of beetles, half of a small, well-wrought and polished
jet ring, and a rude bone peg or two. About five feet above
the shell-bed lay an ochrey-yellow band of some inches in
thickness, which, with all that lay below it (to a foot and
a half or two feet beneath the shells), gave unquestionable
evidence of having been deposited in water not liable to
violent commotion. A careful inspection of the whole
deposit and of the surrounding locality seems to lead to the
supposition that there must have been a pool here in ancient
times. There are reasons for assuming that the bed of thi
pool originated in the geological movement which created
a fault in the adjacent bed of ironstone, which fault is shown
clearly, in section, a few yards beyond the deposit. But as to
the circumstances under which the deposit was made there
is no evidence whatever on which so much as to found an
hypothesis. There may have been a species of " lake
dwelling," though no trace of its existence presented
themselves. There may have been a settlement on the
verge of the (probably) steep bank which encompassed ono
side of the pool, although on this supposition it is not very
possible to account for the equable deposition of the shells
and other light matters, and still less for the diffusion
of the bones, pottery, Sic,, over a tolerably wide area.
It is barely possible that a family lived in huts con-
structed in the overhanging trees. It is, perhaps, more
Probable that the site of the assumed dwelling or
dwellings may have been demolished, and no attention
drawn to it, at a period much earlier than that of the
formation of the present road—that is to say at the
time when the earlier excavations and other works neces-
sary towards quarrying the ironstone in the adjacent
bank were in process of being carried out. As to to the
date of these curious remains, that is also tooot,
nichenlat-
ter of conjecture ; but, from the character
d not to be pottery,
the querns, and the jet ring, is is
al,dne.might,
Celtic,laen
discovery
s beyond -
tt rheamt
ecovery
eY
little tremote.
hat i s They
positive a
of any kind of edged implement or
definitew'eap
an
P rhaP't
have given room for r e undoubtedly
a aal es
a more
discovered.
judgment, but
nothirg of the kind hast may 1,0
beenbtained was ruu„kably
added that the human jaw
Person of
The thre© teeth, which are •
hugh proportions. still in their
massive and large, and most havee belonged. to a
era down ; in-
deed, nearly the wholrehctreo
sockets, are of
Hatay--a fact which
their coarse
great size and vewryermnucah
nature of a very con-
siderable
portion of this ancient man's A
0110111,.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
RACING FIXTURES FOR 1864.
JA.NI:4RY.

Manchester ......

1

PEE

jiarrow
Clicluidnrci. Spring .... 16

A
Nottingham Spring M 1
Derby Spring 3
Liverpool
Shrewsbury lO
Doncaster Spring

LuAltY.
Lincoln .............. 23
Hungerford .......... 2,5

Croaton-park Al
Edinburgh Spring
Aberg,avenny
6
Thirrsk

• • 16
Warwick Spring ... •
28
Durham
29
Northampton
30
Cat terick

;IL.
Epsom Spring
Newmarket Craven 11
Newmarket First Spring 25

Chester ..............
Yor;c Spring .......... 10
I).lish ury .............. 12
11;57ul
ChelmsfordStoclibridgo
Bath ................
Ascot .., A ........... •
..23
Hampton, ............28
Newton ~. ............ 15 Newcastle-on-Tyne
Odiham .. „ ........... 21 Worcest‘r (Summer)
Bibury ....., ....... .. 22 Ipswich
JULY.

Manchester
Harpenden 2O
Epsom 24

Newmarket Jay
Carlisle ...... ....
Abingdon , l2 Winchester.... l9
Liverpool July . ... 13 I Southampton: .. 2O
Pontefract
Atruysr.

Bright on , 2 Plymouth
Brighton Club
Lewes
Reading
Eghaill
,nevus and Exei er .... 30
Oxford
York August 23

SE rTEMBER,
1 Richmond ............ 20
Weymouth
22..24
13 NewtuarketFirbt October 97
llr a
Leicesterrw i t k .Sep t e rn ber
86 -mAloannnehloeustthe;
Autumn . .
Doncaster
19
Brecon

LIFE AT COMPlEGNE.—Breakfast is served st
half-past eleven, and lasts an hour; it, is ala fourchOte
and, iu fact, a very sound dinner. Tea is drunk at five,
with a little something to atop craving; and dinner pre-
cisely at seven, which lasts nearly two hours. In the even-
ing there is again tea, or little guelque Moses, to stop
hunger before retiring for the nigh, or give the spirits a
fillip.

THE COUNTESS CF ELGIN, according to the last
telegram from India, is on her way home from
Lahore. The day after the interment of the late Earl's
remains the Countess and suite left for Bombay, whence
they return home. It is expected that the Countess and
family will arrive in England towards the latter end of
January or in February.