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<< Text Pages >> Totty Pot - Cave or Rock Shelter in England in Somerset

Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 08 October 2013  Page Views: 6529

Natural PlacesSite Name: Totty Pot
Country: England County: Somerset Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
 Nearest Village: Cheddar
Map Ref: ST48255358
Latitude: 51.279000N  Longitude: 2.743324W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
5

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Cave in Somerset. Totty Pot is located some 5 km east of Cheddar, on the plateau that forms the top of the Mendip Hills, at approx. 245m OD. It was found by Christopher Hawkes during a family outing in 1960, and excavated by Hawkes, geologist Willie Stanton and the Wessex Cave Club between 1960 and 1965.

The present entrance is via a narrow, vertical shaft approximately 0.75 m wide and 4 m deep, leading to a short tunnel giving access into several small chambers, which open up to approximately two metres at the highest end. The approximate length of the cave is 10m. Although having the surface appearance of a swallet, Totty Pot is probably a relict section of an ancient stream cave whose entrance was formed by breaching of the cave roof through sub-aerial lowering of the plateau surface. The current vertical entrance was dug out in the 1960s and is probably not that used in antiquity, when the cave was most likely accessed via a relatively wide and low entrance on the south side of the depression.

Initial excavations at the site were primarily intended to explore its caving potential, and the recovery of archaeological material was unexpected, though it soon became apparent that bone material in particular was present, including both faunal and human remains. Work proceeded more carefully after this, as shown by the recovery of a small flint assemblage of 20 worked pieces, including seven convex backed blades, three rod and seven scalene microliths, and two microburins.

A small surviving human bone assemblage was identified as being from six individuals. The results confirmed the presence of one previously identified Mesolithic individual (7445-7080 cal BC), but unexpectedly placed the other five individuals spanning the Middle to Late Neolithic, from ca. 3500 to ca. 2600 cal BC.

Read more in the paper here:
Schulting, R.J., Gardiner, P., Hawkes, C., and Murray, E. 2010. A Mesolithic and Neolithic human bone assemblage from Totty Pot, Mendips, Somerset. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 25: 75-95.
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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
ST4853 : Middledown Nature Reserve by Nick Chipchase
by Nick Chipchase
©2015(licence)
ST4853 : Gorse in flower on the Mendips by Nick Chipchase
by Nick Chipchase
©2015(licence)
ST4853 : Road at the top of Cheddar Gorge by Adrian and Janet Quantock
by Adrian and Janet Quantock
©2005(licence)
ST4753 : Lonely shed near the Totty Pot by George Evans
by George Evans
©2009(licence)
ST4853 : Vurley Swallet in Karst Closed Basin by Nick Chipchase
by Nick Chipchase
©2015(licence)

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