Caves and Swallets - Gower - page 279

FIG 158. The Reverend William Buckland's plan showing the excavations in Goat's Hole, or Paviland Cave. (De-
partment of Geology, National Museums and Galleries of Wales)
The most active early explorer of the caves was Colonel E. R. Wood, a local person with a deep in-
terest in palaeontology. Beginning in 1848 he excavated vast quantities of cave deposits, only a few of
which produced any traces of human occupation. He re-excavated Spritsail Tor Cave and investigated the
famous group of caves at Pennard between Three Cliff Bay and Hunts Bay. At Bosco's Den in 1858 in
the upper levels he excavated a large collection of teeth, bones and antlers. Particularly remarkable was
the enormous collection of antlers belonging to over 1,100 reindeer. The mainly broken antlers, which
belonged to young animals, had been naturally shed, but how they got there is not known. As well as
reindeer the excavations in the cave deposits recovered the remains of animals such as cave bear Ursus
speloeus ,wolfandbison Bisonpriscus fromthecolderperiodsalongwithspecieslikespottedhyena,soft-
nosed rhinoceros, straight-tusked elephant andlion Panthera leo fromthe warmer periods. These animals
are characteristic of the Gower bone caves and have been found in various combinations at the sites.
With the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in
1859 a more scientific approach began to be taken and a proper interpretation of all of the evidence from
the exploration of the caves undertaken. Colonel Wood's analysis of his excavations of Deborah's Hole
and Long Hole in 1861 reflected this important change in thinking and it soon became widely accepted
that the flint implements found in the Gower caves were directly associated with an extinct fauna. Again
in 1869 he found human remains associated with animal bones at the Mewslade Quarry Fissures. Despite
advances in theory much valuable material was lost in these early excavations simply because it was not
recognised for what it was.
It was therefore fortunate that following the 1869 excavations there was a gap of some forty years
before the next major studies, during which only a few casual finds were recorded from the caves. If
the excavations had continued at the same pace the value of the environmental record would have been
greatly diminished. When Professor W. J. Solas re-excavated Goat's Hole in 1912 with the assistance of
Henri-Édouard-Prosper Breuil, a French archaeologist better known as the Abbé Breuil, excavations had