WILLIAM PENGELLY CAVE STUDIES TRUST
PALAEONTOLOGY
Three or four hundred years ago caves were regarded with superstition and fear and it wasn't until the 19th Century that systemmatic cave exploration for fossil remains began. The first cave to be examined for fossils in Britain was a limestone fissure at Oreston near Plymouth.
Dean William Buckland, 1784 - 1856
William Buckland pioneered scientific cave exploration in Britain. He recognised that caves were formed as a result of natural processes and that there are several types of bone deposits in caves; water-lain deposits, talus cones, and the deposits of inhabited caves. His views on the origins of these deposits in caves were condemned by many as being " inconsistent with the Scriptures". The conventional view was that the bones had been drifted into the caves by the waters of the Biblical Deluge, which had carries the carcases of the tropical animals northwards. Despite his many new theories on the origins of bone deposits in caves, Buckland never accepted the evidence that proved that man had co-existed with the extinct mammals. Man was regarded as a very recent creation (4004 B.C. was quoted as the most likely year) and therefore any evidence that showed that man had existed in geological time must be incorrect. In 1825 Buckland visited Pixies Hole, Chudleigh; Kents Cavern, Torquay; Ash Hole, Brixham; Ansteys Cove Cave, Torbryan; and the Oreston Caves near Plymouth. |
 |
William Pengelly, F.R.S. 1812 - 1894
William Pengelly was the genius behind some of the earliest systemmatic
cave research in England. He spent most of his life in Devon and his
major research projects took place in Devonshire caves.
Pengelly's most significant work took place in Kent's Cavern at Torquay from 1865. Over a period of sixteen years, Pengelly accumulated a mass of evidence on the animal and men of prehistoric Devon.
His work established beyond all doubt that man had existed during the Pleistocene Period (1 million years ago) and caused the whole of the scientific world to awake to the fact of the vast antiquity of the human race.
Pengelly's cave work was of special value by the virtue of the facts and methods he used and the conclusions he reached. He showed that caves, especially newly discovered caves, could reveal more valuable information by systematic investigation than by just poking around in the deposits. His excavations involved the entire deposits to be removed from the cave and to do it layer by layer so that evidence from different deposits could not be muddled. He also kept the strictest check on the position of every object found.
After the Kent's Cavern excavations Pengelly continued to investigate other Devonshire caves and he wrote a number of scientific papers.
Links List:
James Lyon Widger, 1823 - 1892
James Lyon Widger was born in Broadhempston near Totnes and during his childhood explored many of the caves in that district, discovering many bones and artifacts.
The memory of his boyhood adventures in the Torbryan caves was never far from Widger's thoughts and in 1865 he proceeded to carry out excavations.
By William Pengelly's standards he was inexperienced, ignorant of geology and excavations and completely unknown to scientific circles. He always chose to work alone, desiring no companionship, no advice nor any assistance in his work. Despite the fact that Torbryan was only ten miles away from Kent's Cavern, William Pengelly had no knowledge of the cave excavations being carried out by Widger until 1870. Widger is known to have met Pengelly, but the two workers had little in common and there was no co-operation between them.
Although unrecognised at the time, the importance of Widger's work at Torbryan was the remarkable sequence of deposits he exposed. They include an inter-glacial layer sandwiched between two cold layers and the excavations revealed the most complete sequence of deposits ever to be found in a British cave.
Widger's discovery of a hyaena den has been referred to as one of the most remarkable of British examples.
Bone and Tooth Remains from Joint Mitnor Cave
River Dart Scene
A composite diorama showing a scene from the River Dart as it must have appeared during the last inter-glacial period a hundred thousand years ago.