The New International Encyclopædia/Kent's Hole

KENT'S HOLE. A famous archæological station near Torquay, Devonshire coast, England, yielding rude chipped and bone implements of Paleolithic type. As early as 1825 the cave was explored by MacEnery, again in 1840 by Godwin Austin, and in 1864 by Pengelly and Vivian, acting under a committee of the British Association. The deposits, in descending order, were: (1) Large blocks of limestone cemented here and there with stalagmite; (2) a layer of black mold 3 to 12 inches thick; (3) stalagmite 1 to 3 feet thick, almost continuous; (4) red cave earth varying in thickness and containing about 50 per cent. of broken limestone, with bones of extinct animals—horse, mammoth, rhinoceros, wolf, and lion—and rude stone implements; (5) above the red clay and below the stalagmite in one part of the cave a thin sheet of black earth containing charcoal, flint scrapers, barbed harpoon-heads, and other implements in bone and antler, besides the bones and teeth of animals. From the upper layer were taken relics of polished stone, copper, bronze, pottery of Roman times, and human bones supposed to prove cannibalism. Consult Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain (New York, 1872).