Schulting, R. J., Fibiger, L., Macphail, R. I., McLaughlin, R. Rowan., Murray, E., Price, C. R. and Walker, E. A. (2013). Mesolithic and Neolithic Human Remains from Foxhole Cave, Gower, South Wales. The Antiquaries Journal. Vol 93, pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000358151300019X.
Title The title of the publication or report |
Mesolithic and Neolithic Human Remains from Foxhole Cave, Gower, South Wales | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Issue The name of the volume or issue |
The Antiquaries Journal | ||||||||||||||||||||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London | ||||||||||||||||||||
Volume Volume number and part |
93 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Page Start/End The start and end page numbers. |
1 - 23 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Biblio Note This is a Bibliographic record only. |
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Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
Journal | ||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
This paper presents an overview of the results of two brief excavation seasons (2008 and 2010) at Foxhole Cave, Gower, south Wales, placing them into the wider context of mid-Holocene Britain. No prehistoric pottery was found and the few pieces of worked flint recovered are diagnostic of the Mesolithic period. Typically for the Carboniferous limestone caves of Gower, bone was well preserved, however, and though much of the material in the heavily disturbed upper metre or so of the deposits was modern sheep and rabbit, scattered fragments representing the remains of at least six humans were also recovered, of which two have been directly radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS 14C) to the Late Mesolithic and two to the earlier Neolithic (the remaining two providing Romano-British and medieval dates). Their associated stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values indicate a significant difference in diet between the two periods (contrary to the results from an earlier excavation in 1997), with marine foods contributing around half of the protein for the Mesolithic individuals and little or none for the Neolithic individuals. The new results are consistent with those from Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, some 30km to the west. The floor of the cave has still not been reached at around 2m depth; limited investigation of the lowermost levels has yielded a Pleistocene fauna (including reindeer, aurochs or bison and collared lemming) with dates back to approx 33,500 cal bc, though with no definite evidence for human activity so far. A small, dark-stained fragment of human cranium was recovered from what may be pre-Holocene levels, but this failed to produce sufficient collagen for dating. In addition to a marked dietary shift, the combined stable isotope and dating programme provides further support for an equally striking temporal gap of some two millennia between the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of caves for burial. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Locations Any locations covered by the publication or report. This is not the place the book or report was published. |
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Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
27 Mar 2015 |