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<< Text Pages >> Cattedown Bone Cave - Cave or Rock Shelter in England in Devon

Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 18 December 2007  Page Views: 13047

Natural PlacesSite Name: Cattedown Bone Cave
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 2.435 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Devon Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Plymouth  Nearest Village: Cattedown
Map Ref: SX490537
Latitude: 50.363782N  Longitude: 4.124408W
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
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data 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.
1 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 or Rock Shelter in Devon. The City of Plymouth, England has had a remarkable and unique history of bone-cave discoveries since the very beginning of the 19th Century, when the working of the Admiralty Breakwater Quarries at Oreston first breached caves filled with fossil bones. The climax of these occasional encounters with the City's buried fossil heritage surely came with the breaching of a fissure at Cattedown in Autumn 1886, which led to the discovery of the remains of at least fifteen hominids, which were subsequently excavated and researched by a local naturalist, R.N. Worth and others.

Owing to both the geographical location of the Cattedown discovery, in a European context, and to the quantitative and qualitative nature and physical disposition of the human remains, this is one of the most important discoveries ever documented about the history of "anatomically-modern humans" or Homo sapiens in Europe. There is currently no evidence of Homo neanderthalensis ever having been found in caves at Cattedown, Oreston, Stonehouse or Mount Batten.


More at the page from Devon Karst.

An ancient skull and jawbone excavated from prehistoric caves in Cattedown will undergo vital preservation work after the city museum secured a £5,000 grant. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery will work on the bones thanks to the Preservation of Industrial and Scientific Material (PRISM).

They were originally excavated in 1886-7 by local historian Robert Worth who also discovered bones of Ice Age woolly rhinoceroses, woolly mammoth, hyena and reindeer in the limestone caverns.

Jan Freedman, the museum's assistant keeper of natural history, said: "The material from the caves is probably the largest collection of early human remains found in the UK and, once they're properly researched, should be able to tell us a great deal about some of western Europe's earliest people."

The bones are believed to be up to 140,000 years old, potentially making them the oldest found in Britain.

Mr Freedman said the skull - part of a collection of bones known as 'Cattedown Man' - is the largest combined piece from the caves and both specimens are in a fragile state as the glue holding them together is deteriorating while the bone material itself is extremely brittle.

Mr Freedman said: "The PRISM grant will enable two of our conservation team to work with a specialist conservator at the Natural History Museum in London, who is an international expert in this field.

"The skull and jaw will be taken apart, the old adhesive will be removed and the bone fragments will be stabilised. They will then be put back together again and suitably mounted for storage, transportation and display purposes."
Cattedown Bone Caves are part of a huge system of caverns thought to spread beneath Cattedown and to around 50 metres below sea level.

Source: This is Plymouth



Note: An ancient skull and jawbone excavated from prehistoric caves in Cattedown, Plymouth to undergo vital preservation work
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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
SX4953 : The Green Man on the South West Coast Path by David Smith
by David Smith
©2012(licence)
SX4953 : Cattewater by Stephen McKay
by Stephen McKay
©2017(licence)
SX4953 : Oil Storage Tanks, Cattedown by N Chadwick
by N Chadwick
©2017(licence)
SX4953 : Oil Storage Tanks by the Cattewater by Tony Atkin
by Tony Atkin
©2006(licence)
SX4953 : Oil Storage Tanks by Cattewater by Derek Harper
by Derek Harper
©2009(licence)

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