Kent's Cavern, Torquay, Devon


NGR: SX 9344 6416

NMR: SX 96 SW 12

SMR: -

SAM: 201, 10717

DCCR: 300

Excavation: J. MacEnery, 1825-29; W. Pengelly, 1865-80; H.G. Dowie, A.H. Ogilvie et al., 1926-40.

Curation: Torquay Museum; British Museum, London; Natural History Museum, London; Bolton Museum; Manchester Museum.

Burials: MNI: 3+

Finds: Beaker, Bronze Age and Iron Age pottery, flints, barbed and tanged arrowhead, amber beads, bronze and bone artefacts; Romano-British artefacts.

Date: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Anglo Saxon and Medieval (1).

14C: 30,900 bp (OxA-1621), 8270 bp (OxA-23812), 8185 bp (OxA-20588), 5053 bp (OxA-23809), 5020 bp (OS-36644), 3560 bp (OxA-1787), 3460 bp (OS-36643), 3008 bp (OxA-23810), 1520 bp (OxA-13132), 570 bp (OxA-11783) on human bone.

Bibliography:

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Beynon, F., Dowie, H.G. & Ogilvie, A.H. (1929) Report on excavations in Kent's Cavern, 1926-1929. Transactions of the Torquay Natural History Society 5: 237-242.

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

Campbell, J.B. (1977) The Upper Palaeolithic of Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Campbell, J.B. & Sampson, C.G. (1971) A new analysis of Kent's Cavern, Devonshire, England. University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 3: 1-40.

Cook, J. & Jacobi, R. (1998) Observations on the artefacts from the breccia at Kent's Cavern. In Ashton, N. et al. (eds) Stone Age Archaeology. Essays in Honour of John Wymer. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 77-89.

Dowie, H.G. (1928) Note on recent excavations in Kent's Cavern, Torquay. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 5: 306-307.

Duckworth, W.L.H. (1913) Notes on some points connected with the excavation of Kent's Cavern, Torquay; with a report on the fragmentary human upper jaw from the granular stalagmite. Journal of the Torquay Natural History Society 1: 215-220.

Harrison, C.J.O. (1980) A re-examination of British Devensian and earlier Holocene bird bones in the British Museum (Natural History). Journal of Archaeological Science 7: 53-68.

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Jacobi, R.M. et al. (1986) Kent's Cavern, Devon: dating of the 'Black Band' and human resettlement of the British Isles following the last glacial maximum. Quaternary Newsletter 48: 10-12.

Keith, A. (1926) Report on a human skull found near the N entrance to Kent's Cavern. Transactions and Proceedings of the Torquay Natural History Society 4: 289-294.

Kennard, A.S. (1945) The early digs at Kent's Hole, Torquay, and Mrs Cazalet. Proceedings of the Geologists Association 56: 156-213.

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Pengelly, W. (1865-80) First ... to ... Sixteenth Report of the Committee for exploring Kent's Cavern. Reports of the Meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Price, C.R. (2003) Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Small Mammals in South West Britain. BAR British Series 347. B.A.R., Oxford.

Proctor, C., Douka, K., Proctor, J.W. & Higham, T. (2017) The age and context of the KC4 maxilla, Kent's Cavern, UK. European Journal of Archaeology 20: 74-97.

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Schulting, R.J., Bello, S.M., Chandler, B. & Higham, T.F.G. (2015) A cut-marked and fractured Mesolithic human bone from Kent’s Cavern, Devon, UK. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 25: 31-44.

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Straw, A. (1995) Kent's Cavern: whence and whither. Transactions of the Torquay Natural History Society 21: 51-73.

Straw, A. (1996) The Quaternary record of Kent's Cavern - a brief reminder and update. Quaternary Newsletter 80: 17-25.

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Vivian, E. (1847) On Kent's Cavern near Torquay. Quaterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 3: 352.

Warren, C.N. and Rose, S. (1994) William Pengelly's Spits, Yards and Prisms: the Forerunners of Modern Excavation Methods and Techniques in Archaeology. Torquay: Torquay Natural History Society, Publication No. 5.

White, M. & Pettitt, P. (2012) Ancient digs and modern myths: the age and context of the Kent's Cavern 4 Maxilla and the earliest Homo sapiens specimens in Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 15 (3): 392-420.

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