Dinnis, Rob, Boulton, John, Chandler, Barry, Davies, Jesse, French, Jennifer 
ORCID: 0000-0001-5947-6669, Higham, Thomas, Jáuregui, Louisa, Lewis, Mark, Meyer, Matthias, Schreve, Danielle et al (show 2 more authors)
(2025)
A Middle and Late Devensian sequence from the northern part of Kents Cavern (Devon, UK)
Journal of Quaternary Science, 40 (6).
pp. 925-943.
ISSN 0267-8179, 1099-1417
Abstract
1920s/30s excavation of a Middle Devensian sequence in the northern part of Kents Cavern recovered important Late Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic archaeological material, including Britain's oldest known Homo sapiens remains. Questions remain about this material, including how it came to be in the cave. Judged by the recorded distribution of finds it may have entered via the Northeast Gallery. A previously unrecorded entrance into the cave from the Northeast Gallery was identified in 2014, and a column through the entrance's sedimentary fill was excavated during 2015–2016. The results of that work are reported here. The entrance retains an intact and well-stratified Pleistocene sequence comparable to the ‘Cave Earth’ unit described previously inside the cave. The uppermost part of the newly recognised Northeast Gallery entrance sequence has been removed by historical excavation, with most of the remaining sediments spanning the Middle Devensian and earlier part of the Late Devensian. The sequence contains bone and pollen, and ancient mammalian DNA is preserved within the sediments. The base of the Northeast Gallery entrance sequence is formed of a clayey diamict comparable to the cave's ‘Breccia’ unit, a deposit currently understood as Middle Pleistocene, and previously identified only in Kents Cavern's southern chambers. Comparison of the excavated sequence with the historical record of the Vestibule excavation shows that the basal cave earth deposits in the Northeast Gallery entrance are significantly higher than those inside the cave. Although requiring further work to confirm, this suggests that the Northeast Gallery could have played a major role in the accumulation of material in the Vestibule during the Middle Devensian.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | cave sedimentology, Late Pleistocene, Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 07 May 2025 07:27 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Feb 2026 01:35 |
| DOI: | 10.1002/jqs.3705 |
| Open Access URL: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/j... |
| Related Websites: | |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3192640 |
| Disclaimer: | The University of Liverpool is not responsible for content contained on other websites from links within repository metadata. Please contact us if you notice anything that appears incorrect or inappropriate. |
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