Chelm's Combe Shelter, Cheddar, Somerset


NGR: ST 4634 5447

NMR: ST 45 SE 1

SMR: S 10384

SAM: -

MCRA: 714

Excavation: H.E. Balch, 1925-6.

Curation: Wells and Mendip Museum; UBSS Museum.

Burials: MNI: 5 (3 adult, 2 children)

Finds: Neolithic (Peterborough ware), Beaker and IA pottery, Romano-British artefacts, flint scrapers, bone tools, animal bones.

Date: Neolithic (1)

14C: 4680 bp (BM-2974) on human bone; 10,190 bp (BM-2318); 10,220 bp (BM-2431); 10,140 to 10,910 bp (OxA-1781 to 1785) on animal bone from layers below Holocene deposits.

Bibliography:

Ambers, J. & Bowman, S. (2003) Radiocarbon measurements from the British Museum: Datelist XXVI. Archaeometry 45 (3): 531-540.

Balch, H.E. et al. (1926) Excavations at Chelm's Combe, Cheddar. Proceedings of the Somerset Natural History and Archaeological Society 72 (2): 93-123.

Balch, H.E. (1949) Cheddar – Its Gorge and Caves. Wright, Bristol.

Branigan, K. & Dearne, M.J. (1991) A Gazetteer of Romano-British Cave Sites and their Finds. Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield.

Burleigh, R. (1986) Radiocarbon dates for humans and animal bones from Mendip caves. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 17 (3): 267-274.

Currant, A.P. (1991) A late glacial interstadial mammal fauna from Gough's Cave, Somerest, England. In Barton, N. et al. (eds) The Late Glacial in North-west Europe. CBA Research Report 77. Council for British Archaeology, London, pp. 48-50.

Dobson, D.P. (1931) The Archaeology of Somerset. Methuen, London.

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.

Harrison, C.J.O. (1989) Bird remains from Chelm's Combe Shelter, Cheddar, Somerset. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 18 (3): 412-414.

Harrison, R.A. (1976) Two pieces of worked bone from the Pleistocene deposits at Chelm's Combe Rock Shelter, Cheddar. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 14 (2): 115-122.

Hedges, R.E.M. et al. (1990) Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry datelist 10. Archaeometry 32: 101-108.

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