Welsh Journals

A preliminary report on new excavations at Bacon Hole Cave by CHRISTOPHER STRINGER BACON HOLE CAVE has been a subject of interest to palaeontologists for over a hundred years. In 1850 Colonel Wood conducted excavations inside the cave which yielded a rich collection of fossil mammal bones, now recognised as dating from the last glacial stage (the Devensian, in Britain) and the preceding interglacial stage (Ipswichian). In those ex cavations Wood and Benson (Benson, 1852) identified the following sequence of deposits in ascending order resting on the solid limestone floor of the cave: a shelly sand containing marine molluscs and bones of small animals such as the water vole and birds; an irregular stalagmite layer; black sand containing decayed bones, bones of mustelids (badger, polecat) and remains referred by Wood and Benson to the mammoth, now recognised as those of the straight-tusked elephant (Falconer, 1868): a red cave earth and sand, containing the remains of elephant, a rhino- ceros now recognised as the narrow-nosed species Dicerorhinus hemi- toechus (Falconer, ibid.), hyaena, deer, bovids (bison or giant ox), bear