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| Ibex Cave | |
|---|---|
 Entrance to Ibex Cave. | |
  Map showing location of Ibex Cave inGibraltar. | |
| Location | Eastern face of theRock of Gibraltar,Gibraltar |
| Coordinates | 36°08′05″N5°20′44″W / 36.134799°N 5.345538°W /36.134799; -5.345538 |
| Discovery | 1975[1] |
| Geology | Limestone |
| Entrances | 1 |
Ibex Cave is alimestone cave on theRock of Gibraltar which has yielded stone artifacts ofMousterian tradition. It was discovered in 1975.[1] It is so named as anibex skull was found within the cave which would have been hunted by theNeanderthals of Gibraltar thousands of years ago. Ibex Cave was named and excavated by theGibraltar Museum in 1994. Its first formal description was in 1999.[2] It is protected by theHeritage and Antiquities Act 2018 of the Government of Gibraltar.
Ibex Cave was named and excavated by theGibraltar Museum in 1994. Before this, a sand collection operation had been ongoing on the east side of theRock of Gibraltar. The sand from the slopes that was then beneath thewater catchments was extracted and transported along aconveyor belt system to the road below for industrial use. The decaying skeleton of this conveyor system was visible from Sir Herbert Miles Road until very recently.[3]
In 1985, when workers began removing sand from above the water catchments, they discovered the entrance to a small cave. They recovered stoneartifacts and bones until ordered to stop byGeorge Palao of the Public Works Department. Palao gathered the collected items and arranged for the cave to be sealed according to notes found years later in a vault at the Gibraltar Museum. These finds were rediscovered in a bag in 1991 by Prof.Clive Finlayson, Director of the Gibraltar Museum. They includedstone tools, made mainly of redjasper and manymammal bones including the almost complete skull of anibex, a wild mountain goat. In the bag was Palao's report and thus was able to establish where the finds came from. The stone artifacts were ofMousterian tradition, i.e.Neanderthal. A museum collaborator, Julio Gafan, was aware of this find and introduced Prof. Finlayson to one of the former workers at the site who agreed to take them to the site where the artifacts had been recovered.[3]
Writing about the rediscovery, Prof. Finlayson and his wife Dr.Geraldine Finlayson wrote:[3] The area is divided into east and west sides by Rock, which are connected by a quarter-mile tunnel. There are some reservoirs around. The sides of the Rock have different scenes, with the eastern side warmer and better lit than the west. Sandy platform can be reached via the climbing cliff of about 700 steps, which was left over from the sand transported by workers here. Prof. Finlayson and Dr. Geraldine Finlayson mentioned
"The cave needed a name. No matter how much we debated we could not reach agreement."
It is now known that Ibex Cave was ahunting station for the Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago, a site where they went to hunt the ibexes. Other fauna associated with the site included the now rare lammergeier orbearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus).[3]
In 2018 this cave was included in the caves listed in the Heritage and Antiquities Act by the Government of Gibraltar, noting that the cave was a Palaeolithic site.[4]
