Cathole Cave
Excavation
E.R. Wood, 1864; C.B.M. McBurney, 1958-59; J.B. Campbell, 1968; E.A. Walker, 2012.
Curation
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Ethnography; British Museum, London; Natural History Museum, London; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (80.55H).
Burials
MNI: 2+
Finds
beaker, socketed bronze axe, flint flakes, animal bones
Dates
| Period | Reliability |
|---|---|
| Neolithic | 14C date obtained directly on human remains |
14C
4645 bp (OxA-11023, redated 4675 bp, OxA-16605) on human bone
External References
| Royal Commission CARN Database | 305612 |
| Sites and Monument Record | 00231W |
| Cambrian Caving Council Record | 1118 |
Bibliography
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Campbell, J.B. (1977) The Upper Palaeolithic of Britain. A Study of Man and Nature in the Late Ice Age. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Campbell, S. & Bowen, D.Q. (1989) Geological Conservation Review. Quaternary of Wales. Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough.
Garrod, D.A.E. (1926) The Upper Palaeolithic Age in Britain. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Gibson, A.M. (1982) Beaker domestic sites: a study of the domestic pottery of the late third and early second millenia B.C. in the British Isles. British Archaeological Reports British Series 107. B.A.R., Oxford.
Green, H.S. & Walker, E. (1991) Ice Age Hunters. Neanderthals and Early Modern Hunters in Wales. National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
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McBurney, C.B.M. (1959) Report on the first season’s fieldwork on British Upper Palaeolithic cave deposits. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 25: 260-269.
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Nash, G.H., Simms, M.J., Thomas,L., & van Calsteren,P. (2012). A discovery of possible Upper Palaeolithic parietal art in Cathole Cave, Gower penninsula, south Wales. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 25.3: 327-336.
Nash, G.H. & Beardsley, A. (2013) The survey of Cathole Cave, Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 26.1: 73-83.
Price, C.R (2003) Late Pleistocene and early Holocene small mammals in south west Britain. British Archaeological Reports British Series 347.
Roberts, J. (1887) Cats Hole Cave. Annual Report and Transactions of the Swansea Scientific Society 15-23.
Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales (1976) An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan. Volume I: Pre-Norman Part I. The Stone and Bronze Ages. HMSO, Cardiff.
Schulting, R.J. (2020) Claddedigaethau mewn ogofâu: Prehistoric human remains (mainly) from the caves of Wales. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 28 (2) : 185-219.
Vivian, H.H. (1887) Description of the Park Cwm tumulus. Archaeologia Cambrensis 42: 197-201.
Walker, E.A. (2014) Excavations at Cathole Cave, Gower, Swansea. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 26.2: 131-169.
Article Author Graham Mullan