Vandalism at Welsh cave site.

[NigR]

Hi Robin,

No, didn't google same as you but found it easily enough.

Would like to know exact date it went up on the web so let me know if you find out.

Haven't got time to delve around any more myself right now - new NFL season is about to begin!

Nig

 

[ChrisJC]

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/tmdj/2011/00000004/00000002/art00003

What an interesting find. It's location is indeed laid bare!

Being such an obscure article it's hardly likely to be happened upon by a casual vandal. And they probably couldn't decipher the complicated language to work out where it is.

Must be an inside job. QED. 

Chris.

 

[shortscotsman]

Well,

Its a very strange way to "keep the location secret".    I would still say that people who knew the area could have guessed the location
from the very first article [I did].  Its a very popular location and I suspect half of swansea have been there at some time or other.
I've been there (just missed NigR by a whisker) and I think secrecy is still being relied upon to preserve this artifact.....



As a curious point, 2 of the 3 authors are specialists in Uranium dating but the article doesn't give a Uranium-based date....

 

[Rhys]

An interesting article indeed. It confirms that the site is one of two on Gower that I suspected as being likely from just a brief  glimpse of the BBC report.

Rhys

 

[NigR]

It confirms that the site is one of two on Gower that I suspected as being likely from just a brief  glimpse of the BBC report.

Is it the written Press Release put out at the end of July that you are referring to or do you mean the filmed report televised at the end of August?

If you search around enough you will eventually stumble across another internet forum where someone (not a caver) correctly guessed the location purely on the basis of the information contained within the Press Release (as indeed did shortscotsman). If I recall correctly (haven't got the link to hand right now) this was the very next day after the Press Release was first issued.

Graham blames CADW for the timing of the Press Release but was CADW responsible for the content? I very much doubt it.

Its a very strange way to "keep the location secret".   

Precisely.

It's a very popular location and I suspect half of Swansea have been there at some time or other.

Having spent yesterday afternoon in Swansea city centre, I would suggest that everyone concerned with this discovery should fervently hope that the 'other half' do not suddenly get the urge to go and visit it. Because if they do the only way to preserve this supposed artifact will be to employ security measures along the lines of those in place around Area 51!

For the benefit of anyone who does not know the region, I would like to point out that Swansea is a major urban area and it has all the joys, delights and problems found in any UK city today. The cave is situated less than five miles from the city centre and cars can be parked five minutes away from the entrance. If you prefer to take a bus direct from the Quadrant (regular service) then the approach time is increased to a daunting ten minutes.

All of which, particularly when considered within the context of a discovery of such potential magnitude as this, makes it all the more inexplicable why CADW should have (to quote Graham) "failed to see the need for protection".

Surely I am not alone in thinking this is rather odd (to say the least)?

As a curious point, 2 of the 3 authors are specialists in Uranium dating but the article doesn't give a Uranium-based date....

This is most likely because the article was written and submitted for publication prior to the Uranium dating process being completed. Information concerning the Uranium dating results (apparently of the calcite) would appear to be of prime importance so far as verification of the carving is concerned and these results have now been extensively quoted in all sections of the media. The most recent example I can find of this is as follows:

http://www.slrconsulting.com/news_stories/slr-associate-unearths-further-information-about-britain-s-oldest-rock-art-in-wales

 

[TheBitterEnd]

Curiosity may well have killed the cat but I'll don a tin hat and body armour and ask this...

How do they actually know that it is paleolithic? 

 

[graham]

Curiosity may well have killed the cat but I'll don a tin hat and body armour and ask this...

How do they actually know that it is paleolithic?

Because there is some stal flow which covers part of the engraving. That stal has been dated and found to be a bit over 12,000 years old.

 

[TheBitterEnd]

Thanks, thought it may be something like that

 

[Les W]

Curiosity may well have killed the cat but I'll don a tin hat and body armour and ask this...

How do they actually know that it is paleolithic?

Because there is some stal flow which covers part of the engraving. That stal has been dated and found to be a bit over 12,000 years old.

Although that in itself does not prove it's true age, it gives a minimum age.

 

[shortscotsman]

Hi,

they do now have a Uranium dating age which, as people have said,  comes from dating the material deposited over the carving.

However, the linked article gives a minimum age based on circumstantial evidence - the carving is identified as a raindeer which were only  present in the area more than 10,000 years ago. 

Posted by: NigR
This is most likely because the article was written and submitted for publication prior to the Uranium dating process being completed.

Yup, which made me puzzled as to why the dating specialist were co-authors!  [As far as I can tell the publication date is 1st July ]

 

[whitelackington]

Curiosity may well have killed the cat but I'll don a tin hat and body armour and ask this...

How do they actually know that it is paleolithic?

Because there is some stal flow which covers part of the engraving. That stal has been dated and found to be a bit over 12,000 years old.

How would you arrive at the oldest possible date?

 

[graham]

Curiosity may well have killed the cat but I'll don a tin hat and body armour and ask this...

How do they actually know that it is paleolithic?

Because there is some stal flow which covers part of the engraving. That stal has been dated and found to be a bit over 12,000 years old.

How would you arrive at the oldest possible date?

It's a matter of stratigraphy. In this case the engraving is cut into stal and is covered over by stal. Dating the latter gives the minimum age dating the former gives the maximum age. Unfortunately the older stal has not preserved the relevant isotopes and so doesn't yield a date.

One is then forced to rely on the archaeology to discover what dates are feasible. This analysis is still under way, but there are two possible periods. Off the top of my head they are about 12,500 years old and about 28,000 years old Don't quote me on that I haven't looked 'em up this morning.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Looking at The Caves of the Gower it is suggested that the cave in question is a fossil remnant of the Tooth/Llethryd system. Does that mean that it may have blocked extensions that may have been inhabited, or is it a cave section that has been truncated and isolated in some way so that it is unlikely to have such extensions ?

Robin

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Had PM to effect that is it is isolated. However looking at 3D view in memory map, there does appear to be a fairly substantial limestone plateau (2km x 2km -ish) behind it where there could be more cave development. Would be interesting to see Gower geology maps to see the dips. I assume it generally follows there regional east-west strike.

 

[NigR]

Looking at The Caves of the Gower it is suggested that the cave in question is a fossil remnant of the Tooth/Llethryd system. Does that mean that it may have blocked extensions that may have been inhabited, or is it a cave section that has been truncated and isolated in some way so that it is unlikely to have such extensions ?

The cave may indeed be a fossil remnant of the same system as Tooth and Llethryd although it is now isolated. As such, it has always been of some speleological interest to cavers but none of the potential digging sites have ever been tackled using modern techniques for fear of harming anything that may be of archaeological significance. However, it is extremely doubtful that any (now blocked) extensions further into the system would ever have been inhabited by early man unless he was a much better caver than we are today. Of course, it is possible that another (now concealed) entrance could have existed at some point so your hypothesis cannot be totally discounted.

Had PM to effect that is it is isolated. However looking at 3D view in memory map, there does appear to be a fairly substantial limestone plateau (2km x 2km -ish) behind it where there could be more cave development.

Most of Gower is limestone and there could be cave development in lots of places. It is an extremely promising and very neglected area so far as cave exploration is concerned. Local clubs (including Gower Caving Group in the recent past and Grwp Ogofeydd Garimpeiros at the present time) have put a lot of effort into various projects and have made a number of worthwhile discoveries, many of which have not been widely publicised. The majority of inland Gower is agricultural land or private woodland and particular care needs to be taken regarding access (there is one area not too far away from the cave we are discussing where I have been told problems have arisen in the past).

 

[graham]

Don't knock the caving ability of Palaeolithic men. Even their kids did some trips that take some doing today. In caves like Rouffignac and Niaux they went a hell of a long way underground. There are children's footprints a long way into Peche Merle and Tuc D'Audobert.

However caves do change & some of the routes they took are now blocked by massive stal as well by rock falls etc.

 

[NigR]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking their caving ability, in fact I greatly respect it having seen some of those footprints in France for myself (along with the scorch marks on the walls where they rekindled their torches). As you say, they explored an awfully long way into many of the caves over there.

However, I'll be very surprised (although it would be good wouldn't it?) if they had ever managed to penetrate deeper into the cave we are talking about, from the present entrance at least.

 

[graham]

Sure, I doubt it as well. But I'd need to have a far better idea than I currently do of the geography of the area 28,000 years ago before attempting any predictions.

For some years I've been mulling over a study in one particular French system as to how the archaeology and the geomorphology can be related. The archaeologists have tended to assume that the more restricted impact of the earlier population (broadly comparable to the EUP impact at the Welsh site in question) as compared with the deeper explorations of the later Magdalenian visitors (the 12,500 BP LUP impact in Wales) is a cultural difference whereas I think it is down to the simple availability of cave to explore.

I am pretty sure I'll be able to demonstrate this at the site I'm thinking of, once I can get a decent three dimensional survey.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Not as old as Palaeolithic of course, but they used to send kids down the small passages of the Great Orme Copper Mines 3000 years ago, and they're got to be 100'+ below surface.

Robin

 

[whitelackington]

Is this site adjacent to Goat's Cave.