CAVE-DWELLERS. .‘ general term, usu ally, but applied to a largely hypothetic class of troglodytes. or primeval inhabitants of given countries or of the world. The most de cisive evidence: of cave life by early man are derived from we-tern Europe, both continental and insular. where human remains and are found in certain caverns associated with bone, and teeth of various extinct animals. in cluding the the sabre-toothed tiger. etc.. as well a: of animals no longer occupying the same habitat, such as the reindeer, hyena. etc. As shown by Ifueland in the Eighteenth Cen tury, such remains are frequently found in a distinctive earthy deposit t'red cave earth') beneath a fluor of stalagmite. The sequence of deposits and the character of the fossils attest great antiquity. probably antedating the later glacial period, of the Pleistocene. Several of the most instructive examples of early pre historic man Olan of Spy, Man of ('ro-Magnon, of Mentone. etc.) may be regarded as repre senting the period of European cave-dwellers. In various parts of the world. notably in Asia and southeastern Europe. are found habitation: excavated in cafain-wall, or other precipices: the rock-hewn tombs at Petra. in northern
Arabia. are plausibly supposed to have been designed as places of residence; in China and Mongolia whole villages are excavated in bluffs of loess, as noted by Pumpelly anti others: but nowhere do mankind now occupy natural cave as permanent habitations, so far as known. Many of the .Amerinds temporarily occupied shelves or niches in precipice. ('rock houses,' as they are sometimes called), and sonic inclosed these with walls of masonry or other material to form permanent cliff-dwellings, while others excavated the cliff-faces to form cavate lodges (see ARCILF.01.01i Y. AMERICAN ) it is known, 'too, that individuals and families. or even small bands, found temporary refuge in caverns: yet the term 'cave-dwellers' is inap plicable in America. either as a specific designa tion for any people or period, or as a descriptive term. The general tendency of recent researches is to show that primeval men were arborean and ararian—i.e. forest rangers and shore-dwellers rather than cave-dwellers, and that cave life W a secondary and due to peculiar conditions rather than primary and characteristic.