WILLIAM PENGELLY CAVE STUDIES TRUST

Cave Archaeology

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Archaeological evidence from France has shown that people first inhabited caves about 900 000 years ago.

Caves not only provided shelter from the harsh weather conditions of the Ice Age but also protected people from their natural enemies.

People used the cave as an abattoir, dining room, tool shop and dormitory, scattering around the tool they used and the cracked bones of the animals they ate. Gradually over a period of time all the debris became interbedded with sterile cave deposits and being protected from normal erosive processes remained intact for thousands of years conveniently recording layer by layer generations of activity.

The earliest evidence of human activity in Devon and perhaps England was found in Kent's Cavern Torquay by William Pengelly between 1865 and 1880.

The diagram below shows a section through the deposits of the Great Chamber, Gallery and Southwest Chamber recorded by William Pengelly in his diary.

The oldest flint tools he found were large leaf-like pieces, probably spearheads shaped by fine flaking together with scrapers, waste flakes and retouched pieces.

The radio-carbon dates of 26 770 B.C. and 26 210 B.C. places these tools within the Middle Palaeolithic Acheulian industries, making it one of the oldest known archaeological deposits in Britain.

Regular cave-dwelling in Europe began during the penultimate glaciation when Neanderthals began to occupy caves and rock shelters to shelter from the extremes of climate. Neanderthalers were probably very fearless and proficient hunters. They wore animal pelts and made regular use of fire. Their largely carnivore diet was supplemented by plants gathered near their cave and their weapons included wooden spears, hand axes, stone missiles and clubs. They rarely exceeded 5 feet five inches in height and walked with an upright posture. The skull was exceptionally thick walled and large with a low retreating forehead, a flat brain case and heavy brow ridges. The lower jaw had a receding chin and the teeth were quite large.

Replica of the first Neanderthal skull to be discovered.
It was salvaged in 1848 during quarrying operations on Gibraltar

Many of these features fall within the range of variation for modern man and provide evidence that Neanderthal was a direct ancestor.

Fine paintings of a horse and bison from the decorated caves of Lascaux, France.

During the last Ice Age 35 000 years ago people began to decorate their caves with paintings and carve reliefes onto portable objects such as bones and fragments of ivory and antler. This tradition lasted for 20 000 years and spread across western europe. Cave paintings were technically very simple, using two main pigments; red iron oxide in the form of limonite or hematite and black manganese dioxide, either applied direct or as a paste made with fat or water. Both minerals were easily available to cave artists as they occured in the limestone in which the caves were formed.

Two main categories of subject material were represented in the paintings and reliefs, the animal and the symbol. There seems to be no one reason or theme underlying what was portrayed and it is likely that cave art was produced for many different reasons - some of which we shall never know.

The most conclusive evidence for prehistoric human occupation in a cave is the presence of artifacts such as stone tools and weapons, and more rarely bone tools; weapons and ornaments of bone, ivory, teeth and shell.