| Red "Lady" of Paviland | |
|---|---|
| "Dynes" Goch Pafiland (Welsh) | |
 Remains as seen from the feet | |
| Period/culture | Aurignacian,Upper Palaeolithic c. 34,000 years ago |
| Discovered | 1823 Goat's Hole Cave,Gower Peninsula,Wales |
| Discovered by | William Buckland |
 | |
TheRed "Lady" of Paviland (Welsh:"Dynes" Goch Pafiland)[1] is anUpper Paleolithic partial male skeleton dyed inred ochre and buried inWales approximately 34,000 yearsBefore Present (approximately 32,000 BCE).[2] The bones were discovered in 1823 byWilliam Buckland in an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave (Paviland cave) which is alimestone cave betweenPort Eynon andRhossili on theGower Peninsula, nearSwansea in southWales.[3] Buckland believed the skeleton was aRoman-era female. Later, William Solace examined Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was in fact a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age.[4]
Goat's Hole was occupied throughout prehistory. Artefacts are predominantlyAurignacian, but also include examples from the earlierMousterian (Neanderthal), andLincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician and laterGravettian andCreswellian periods.[5][6] The site is the oldest known ceremonial burial in Western Europe.[7]
There have been calls to return the red skeleton of Paviland to Wales where it was discovered, and also specifically to Swansea.[8][4]
In 1822, Daniel Davies and the Rev John Davies found animal bones, including thetusk of amammoth. The Talbot family ofPenrice Castle was informed and found "bones of elephants" on 27 December 1822.William Buckland, Professor ofGeology atOxford University arrived on 18 January 1823 and spent a week at the location site, Goat's Hole.[9] Later that year, writing about his find in his bookReliquiae Diluvianae (Remains orrelics of the Flood), Buckland stated:
I found the skeleton enveloped by a coating of a kind of ruddle [ochre ] ... which stained the earth, and in some parts extended itself to the distance of about half an inch [12 mm] around the surface of the bones ... Close to that part of the thigh bone where the pocket is usually worn surrounded also by ruddle [were] about two handfuls of theNerita littoralis [periwinkle shells]. At another part of theskeleton,viz in contact with the ribs [were] forty or fifty fragments ofivory rods [also] some small fragments of rings made of the same ivory and found with the rods ... Both rods and rings, as well as theNerite shells, were stained superficially with red and lay in the same red substance that enveloped the bones
Buckland's treatise misjudged both its age and sex.[10][11] He believed that human remains could not be older than theBiblicalGreat Flood, and thus wildly underestimated its true age, believing the remains to date to theRoman era.[5] Buckland believed the skeleton was female largely because it was discovered with decorative items, including perforatedseashellnecklaces and jewellery thought to be of elephant ivory but now known to be carved from the tusk of a mammoth.[12]
William Solace made an expedition to Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was, in fact, a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age. Over the last 100 years the date estimated by Solace has been shifted from the Mesolithic period (4-10,000 BCE) to the Palaeolithic era (35,000/10,000 BCE) of the last Ice Age.[4] However, beforeradiocarbon dating was invented in the 1950s, there was no existing scientific method for the determination of the age of anyprehistoric remains.[9]
In the 1960s,Kenneth Oakley published a radiocarbon determination of 18,460 ± 340 BP.[9] Results published in 1989 and 1995 suggest that the individual from the cave lived about 26,000 years ago (26,350 ± 550 BP, OxA-1815), during the later periods of the UpperPaleolithic. A 2007 examination byThomas Higham ofOxford University andRoger Jacobi of theBritish Museum suggested a dating of 29,000 years ago.[13] A recalibration of the results in 2009 suggest an age of 33,000 years. A later 2010 study revised this to around 34,000 years ago.[2]
Although now on the coast, at the time of the burial, the cave would have been located approximately 110 km (70 miles) inland, overlooking a plain. When the remains were dated to some 26,000 years ago, it was thought the "Red Lady" lived at a time when an ice sheet of the most recent glacial period in the British Isles, called theDevensian Glaciation, would have been advancing towards the site, and that consequently the weather would have been more like that of present-daySiberia, with maximum temperatures of perhaps 10°C in summer, −20° in winter, and atundra vegetation. The new dating, however, indicates he lived during a warmer period.[citation needed]
Bone protein analysis indicates that he lived on a diet of between 15% and 20% fish, which, together with the distance from the sea, suggests that the people may have been semi-nomadic, or that the tribe transported the body from a coastal region for burial.[citation needed]
When the skeleton was discovered, Wales lacked a museum to house it, so it was moved to Oxford University, where Buckland was a professor. The bones are currently on display at theOxford University Museum of Natural History. In December 2007, it was loaned for a year to theNational Museum Cardiff. Subsequent excavations yielded more than 4,000flints, teeth and bones, needles and bracelets, which are on exhibit atSwansea Museum and the National Museum in Cardiff.[citation needed]
Analysis of the evidence from the two excavations atLong Hole Cave on theGower Peninsula, including sediment and pollen as well as the lithic evidence, has identified Long Hole as anAurignacian site contemporary with and related to the site atPaviland, among the earliest evidence of modern humans in Britain.[14]
The Red Lady of Paviland (which is actually aman) was discovered in 1823 byWilliam Buckland, a geology professor atOxford University, and it was quickly transported to Oxford thereafter (some other artefacts were later repatriated).[15][16] This prompted a two-century campaign for it to be repatriated.[15]
In January 2023, the artefact was nicknamed theWelshElgin Marbles, after another artefact with calls forrepatriation from the British Museum to Greece. The Red Lady is currently on display in the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, and is described to be "well cared for". It has been stated by academics at Cardiff University, that if it were to return, it would enhance Wales's national collection and draw attention to its archaeology and caves.[16]
University of Liverpool andCoimbra University in Portugal Prof George Nash says, "Some have attempted to portray the remains as some sort of ancient Welsh ancestor, which is palpable nonsense. Whoever he was, he was almost certainly of African or Arabian distinction, fleeing conflict or over-crowding in his more hospitable homeland. What's more, after the brief thaw of the Palaeolithic era, Wales was cut off again for several thousand years, so there's absolutely no chance of these remains having any genetic or cultural relationship to any modern Welsh person". However, he also acknowledged that the Red Lady "is a significant part of Welsh history", and stated that if the remains could be safely returned to Wales then that "would definitely be the right thing to do".[15]
51°33′0.31″N4°15′18.67″W / 51.5500861°N 4.2551861°W /51.5500861; -4.2551861