Radiocarbon Dating from Ogof-yr-Ychen, a New Pleistocene Site in West Wales

Abstract

THERE has recently been renewed discussion concerning the extent of the Weichselian Irish Sea Glacier^1–3, and several authors have stressed the difficulty of determining its southern margin in Wales on the basis of geomorphological and stratigraphic criteria alone. Also, in South Wales there is no known reliable interglacial or interstadial palaeobotanical site which can be used for the dating of drift sequences. Archaeological investigations in favourable localities may assist greatly in this debate, as well as extending knowledge of Pleistocene faunas and of human Palaeolithic occupation on the South Wales lowlands^4,5. Already it is suggested that substantial parts of Pembrokeshire and the Gower Peninsula were unaffected by ice during the last glaciation³, allowing the possibility of more or less continuous human Palaeolithic occupation of some coastal sites. The radiocarbon age determination for the “Red Lady” of Paviland (18,460 ± 340 yr BP, BM374)⁶ supports this view, indicating that there was Proto-Solutrean occupation of cave sites in Gower close to the peak of the last glaciation. This was followed by a Creswellian occupation, probably after 15,000 yr BP^7,8. In Pembrokeshire the most promising Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic finds have been made during a series of excavations on Caldey Island since 1911 (refs 9 and 10).