cave archaeology

Bacon Hole: Rediscovering Britain’s forgotten Ice Age cave art

Hidden within the limestone cliffs of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales is a cave that has witnessed dramatic changes in climate, landscape, and human history. Bacon Hole, overlooking what is today the Bristol Channel, is home to one of the most intriguing and controversial stories in British prehistoric archaeology. It is a story that began more than a century ago with the discovery of possible Ice Age paintings, continued through decades of doubt, and has now been reopened through modern scientific investigation. George Nash explains.

High Pasture Cave: ritual, memory, and identity in the Iron Age of Skye

Caves have always captured the imagination. This is no less true of High Pasture Cave on the Isle of Skye, whose publication represents the latest contribution to a growing corpus in British cave archaeology. Nestled under the slopes of the…

Great prehistoric sites: famous caves – Excavating the CA archive

For my third and final column on the Palaeolithic, I will clamber into some of the most famous caves in the country. Even better – as I will outline at the end of this selection – the majority are open to the public, offering unparalleled opportunities to visit these stunning prehistoric sites.

CWA news in brief

Cave treasures In 2023, two speleologists exploring the Cave of Tlayócoc in south-western Mexico came across a collection of 500-year-old objects. Archaeologists from INAH investigated further, revealing that the assemblage consisted of 14 artefacts in total, including three engraved shell…

The Naked Neanderthal

REVIEW BY MATTHEW POPE From the start, Slimak is clear that The Naked Neanderthal is a very personal book and offers his own individual views on the archaeology of Neanderthal people. And this is an important point to make. The…

Darkness dispelled: exploring 1,500 years of life and death at the Sculptor’s Cave

The Sculptor’s Cave, on Scotland’s north-east coast, is best known for the Pictish carvings that give the site its name. Recent research by Ian Armit and Lindsey Büster, however, has drawn together evidence of enigmatic prehistoric funerary practices that were carried out at this remote spot for hundreds of years. Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts reports.