In that distant period of the history of the human race when man was still so primitive in his habits that traces of his handiwork are exceedingly difficult to discover, the forest and Vale of Pickering seem to have been without human inhabitants.  Remains of this Old Stone Age have been found in many parts of England, but they are all south of a line drawn from Lincoln to Derbyshire and North Wales.  In the caves at Cresswell Craggs in Derbyshire notable Palaeolithic discoveries were made, but for some reason these savage hordes seem to have come no further north than that spot.  We know, however, that many animals belonging to the pre-glacial period struggled for their existence in the neighbourhood of Pickering.

[Illustration:  A plan and section of Kirkdale Cave.]

It was during the summer of 1821 that the famous cave at Kirkdale was discovered, and the bones of twenty-two different species of animals were brought to light.  Careful examination showed that the cave had for a long time been the haunt of hyaenas of the Pleistocene Period, a geological division of time, which embraces in its latter part the age of Palaeolithic man.  The spotted hyaena that is now to be found only in Africa, south of the Sahara,[1] was then inhabiting the forests of Yorkshire and preying on animals now either extinct or only living in tropical climates.  The waters of Lake Pickering seem to have risen to a sufficiently high level at one period to drive out the occupants of the cave and to have remained static for long enough to allow the accumulation of about a foot of alluvium above the bones that littered the floor.  By this means it appears that the large quantity of broken fragments of bones that were recent at the time of the inundation were preserved to our own times without any perceptible signs of decomposition.  Quarrying operations had been in progress at Kirkdale for some time when the mouth of the cave was suddenly laid bare by pure accident.  The opening was quite small, being less than 5 feet square, and as it penetrated the limestone hill it varied from 2 to 7 feet in breadth and height; the quarrying had also left the opening at a considerable height up the perpendicular wall of stone.  At the present time it is almost inaccessible, and except for the interest of seeing the actual site of the discoveries and the picturesqueness of the spot the cave has no great attractions.

[Footnote 1:  Dawkins, W. Boyd.  “Early man in Britain,” p. 103.]

Not long after it was stumbled upon by the quarrymen Dr William Buckland went down to Kirkdale, and although some careless digging had taken place in the outer part of the cave before his arrival, he was able to make a most careful and exhaustive examination of the undisturbed portions, giving the results of his work in a paper read before the Royal Society in 1822.[1] Besides the remains of many hyaenas there were teeth or bones of such large animals as the elephant, rhinoceros,