I'd forgotten how long it was since the first broadcast (1998). I was still an active caver back then and had done some prospecting around the Rawthey and Wild Boar Fell so it was very interesting to work out exactly where the shakehole was. What I still don't understand is how the Britons (or the wolves!) got into the chamber where the bones were seeing as how the archaeologists went in down a thirty foot shaft.
I think they were originally thought to be Iron (or Bronze) Age? My mind is increasingly sieve-like but I think this may have been recalibrated later on to the Romano-British period. In the original programme Julian Richards visits the small settlement in the valley below Cautley Spout which seems as likely a place as any for the home of the people buried in the cave. I don't know what period that settlement has been dated to but it makes a great filming location. There's also a burial cairn just up from the settlement, towards the Spout which I would imagine is contemporaneous. Burial and religious practices must have changed a lot over the millennia.
Thanks. I've just scanned through some of the Google results and they make interesting reading. Some of the information seems to be contradictory unless I'm getting confused (not unknown). The earliest female (Lady, main subject of the documentary) seems to be mid-Bronze Age ca 3167 BP while the roe deer (had to look up what a ' capreolous' was!) were early mediaeval (605, 815 AD). The children's footprints were deduced to be no later than ca 1300 AD from the evidence. I'm still not sure if the wolves were there before or after the burials since there is a statement that they pre-date the human activity and another one that suggests the animal remains (the deer?) are typical of wolf denning activity. The most stunning (to me) dating listed was a female human skull fragment which was 1865 +/- 40. That's conceivably into the 20th C and potentially someone who could have been known to someone alive today!
That's an interesting point mikem. I've not referred to the original dive logs (always the definitive information source on underwater caves) but could you tell us why you suggest the entrance wouldn't always have been flooded? I don't recall that being said at the time. Reason I ask is I've always been interested in speleothems in underwater caves and have developed an exhausive list of these on the CDG forum. If the Rawthey Cave sumps have been air filled at some previous stage they might contain stals, so the site needs to be added to the list.
I think the radiocarbon numbers are 'years before 1950', so
I'm obviously missing something here? When I followed the UBSS links to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit article the three listed figures (two roe deer and a female skull fragment) don't use 'BP' but does for the other female skull found to be mid Bronze Age. Would BP actually mean before 1996 (when the testing was done)? Whichever year, BP would make much more sense since I did think it was a bit odd that a Victorian lady would have been put in there ( but you never know!).
Significant atmospheric nuclear testing only began post 1950 (after the USSR got the bomb in Aug 1949)
