Paviland Cave

Paviland Cave, also known as Goat's Hole, on the coast of Gower, is Britain's most important Upper Palaeolithic archaeological site. Miss Talbot of Penrice Castle and others excavated the site in 1822, but nothing of note was discovered. This excavation piqued Rev. William Buckland's interest, and in 1823, while conducting his own excavation, he discovered the skeletal bones of what he believed to be a woman whose bones had been coloured red by ochre. He assumed the skeleton belonged to a prostitute or witch. The cave is 10 metres high and 7 metres wide, with a 20-meter-high chimney above it.

It was the site of the first systematic excavation of a human skeleton and the discovery of the first human fossil: the erroneously named 'Red Lady.'The fossilised skeleton, discovered in 1823, was initially thought to be of recent date and female. It is now known, however, that it was a ceremonially buried young adult male. The cave is now on the coast, but it was 100 kilometres inland at the time of the Red Lady's burial when sea levels were about 80 metres lower than they are today. It was built on a cliff above a varied topography plain, with expansive views of the Exmoor hills. The animal bones discovered are numerous and diverse: a rich, arid grassland environment supported mammoths, woolly rhinos, giant deer, bison, reindeer, and horses. Palaeolithic hunters may have driven game to its death over the cliffs. Predators such as hyenas, wolves, and bears competed with humans to occupy the cave; whether or not it was used as a domestic site on a regular basis by humans is unknown.

Irene Kelk commented….”That's where Neanderthal remains were found Also the Gower has a Neolithic long burial chamber and other caves which were the lair of hyenas. Many other interesting sites in Gower where people have lives for millennia”