Creswell Crags Research Articles

A North–Western Habitat: the Paleoethology and Colonisation of a European Peninsula, based upon the first comprehensive analysis of the excavation in Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags

Pin Hole Cave is located within the Creswell Crags limestone gorge in the East Midlands of the United Kingdom. The locality became well known when Quaternary fossil and archaeological remains were discovered within the interior during the 1870s. The cave under went a small excavation in 1875 and then a much larger exploration from 1924 onwards. Despite many publications dealing with the Creswell Caves, Pin Hole Cave has not previously been comprehensively published. The publication includes individual descriptions and associated records for over 70,000 finds from the site, reported in the related digital archive as part of CAPI (Creswell Archaeological and Palaeontological Inventory). The evidence is assessed within the framework of known concepts of modern ecological behaviour to provide a context that might explain such intense activity within this particular Quaternary ecotone.

Engaging Young Audiences Before, During and After the Lockdown

This short article focuses on two heritage sites (the International Bomber Command Centre and Creswell Crags) and reflects on the ways in which such medium-size institutions are trying to find ways of maintaining offsite engagement with young audiences while at the same time generating revenues.

Prehistoric human material in the Nottingham Natural History Museum, and the Cresswell Crags Museum and Heritage Centre

The Creswell Crags Museum and Heritage Centre (CCMHC) and the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall (NOTNH) both curate collections of prehistoric human material that have undergone limited documentation. The condition of current records demanded revision, which this study will perform. Reported here are nine cranial, and five postcranial Neolithic and late Iron Age human bone specimens, as well as two teeth, collected at the CCMHC from the late 19th century excavation of the caves of the gorge and nearby area. Three crania, and three post cranial human bone fragments dating to the late Pleistocene are present among the NOTNH collection; these originate from various locations in the East Midlands. This paper offers a revised account of the material, providing detailed osteological descriptions, and biological profiling of sex, age, pathology and taphonomy; where possible historical backgrounds, and radiocarbon dating information are included in this report. Overall the specimens were found to be in fair condition, while the collections' records of the material required minor corrections.

Creswell Crags in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Creswell Crags in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Species identification of voles and lemmings from Late Pleistocene deposits in Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags, UK) using collagen fingerprinting

Microfaunal remains are commonly used as palaeoenvironmental proxies and have been proposed as a means to identify relative ages of Late Quaternary deposits through biostratigraphy (i.e., utilising ‘Mammal Assemblage Zones’). However, assemblages of faunal remains can include a diverse range of taxa which are often difficult to distinguish using morphological aspects of the surviving bones, particularly when diagnostic features are eroded or missing due to fragmentation. Here we investigate the application of a recently developed method of species identification by collagen fingerprinting to arvicoline rodents (voles and lemmings), the dominant mammalian taxonomic group present at the Late Pleistocene site of Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags U.K., which is currently the designated British type locality for the Pin Hole Mammal Assemblage Zone (Oxygen Isotope Stage 3) fauna. We also further explore the potential for studying collagen decay rate via deamidations, and their applicability across the species boundary, in terms of its use for relative ageing of remains. Our results demonstrate the ease with which some taxa can be objectively distinguished to genus (e.g. Microtus from Myodes and Lemmus from Dicrostonyx) and in some cases species (e.g., M. gregalis from M. oeconomus), but that the potential for relative ageing is complicated by a range of taphonomic factors. The results highlight the potential for this new technique in much larger-scale palaeoenvironmental studies investigating temporal changes in vertebrate biodiversity.

Species identification and decay assessment of Late Pleistocene fragmentary vertebrate remains from Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags, UK) using collagen fingerprinting

Ancient bone remains are widely utilized when investigating vertebrate biodiversity of past animal populations but are often so highly fragmented that the majority of specimens cannot be identified to any meaningful taxonomic level. Recently, high‐throughput methods for objective species identification using collagen peptide mass fingerprinting have been created to overcome this with the added indication that they could also offer a means of relative ageing through decay measurement. Here we explore both species identification and decay measurements for the Pin Hole Cave ‘microfaunal’ assemblage, the site that has been designated as a representative for Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 in Britain in terms of its suite of mammalian fauna. We explore the technique's potential to corroborate the faunal diversity established previously by macroscopic studies and evaluate the decay measurements across the species boundary. The results support that the analysis of fragmentary remains by collagen fingerprinting can yield a more diverse set of fauna, and offer additional information relating to taphonomy, than the analysis of morphologically intact bones on their own. However, although useful for identifying likely contaminations of an assemblage, there was an unexpected decrease in the decay measurements observed for some megafauna compared with much younger microfauna, indicating that other factors need to be carefully monitored before it could be used as a relative ageing technique in Quaternary deposits.

Creswell Crags fossil material in the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall, UK

The Creswell Crags gorge on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border contains a series of caves in which Holocene and Late Pleistocene deposits accumulated. Fossils from these deposits were acquired by the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall (NOTNH), during the late 19th century and early 20th century. This study provides the first published review of the entire NOTNH Creswell Crags collection. Overall, there are 274 fossil specimens from Creswell Crags consisting of 466 individual elements. However, only 11.7% of specimens can be attributed to specific caves and none retain any detailed stratigraphic data. This compromises the scientific value of the collection. The collection contains a total of 160 attached labels (on 146 individual elements) comprising ten different types. An assessment of the faunal abundances was conducted to compare with historical excavations. 61% of the NOTNH elements have been identified to genus level and the collection consists of 17 genera from six orders: Carnivora, Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla, Proboscidea, Lagomorpha and Primates. The NOTNH collection contains proportionately more woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta) elements than the 1870s excavations but fewer hyaena (Crocuta), reindeer (Rangifer), and woolly mammoth (Mammuthus). We attribute these discrepancies to a possible 'donation bias'.

The Long Term Response of Birds to Climate Change: New Results from a Cold Stage Avifauna in Northern England

The early MIS 3 (55–40 Kyr BP associated with Middle Palaeolithic archaeology) bird remains from Pin Hole, Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, England are analysed in the context of the new dating of the site’s stratigraphy. The analysis is restricted to the material from the early MIS 3 level of the cave because the upper fauna is now known to include Holocene material as well as that from the Late Glacial. The results of the analysis confirm the presence of the taxa, possibly unexpected for a Late Pleistocene glacial deposit including records such as Alpine swift, demoiselle crane and long-legged buzzard with southern and/or eastern distributions today. These taxa are accompanied by more expected ones such as willow ptarmigan /red grouse and rock ptarmigan living today in northern and montane areas. Finally, there are temperate taxa normally requiring trees for nesting such as wood pigeon and grey heron. Therefore, the result of the analysis is that the avifauna of early MIS 3 in England included taxa whose ranges today do not overlap making it a non-analogue community similar to the many steppe-tundra mammalian faunas of the time. The inclusion of more temperate and woodland taxa is discussed in the light that parts of northern Europe may have acted as cryptic northern refugia for some such taxa during the last glacial. These records showing former ranges of taxa are considered in the light of modern phylogeographic studies as these often assume former ranges without considering the fossil record of those taxa. In addition to the anomalous combination of taxa during MIS 3 living in Derbyshire, the individuals of a number of the taxa are different in size and shape to members of the species today probably due to the high carrying capacity of the steppe-tundra.

Mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of Devensian hyaenas from Creswell Crags, England

Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) remains have been recovered from British Middle and Upper Pleistocene sites at intervals within the period 700–730 ka BP. Morphological studies have suggested that hyaenas of the Last Interglacial sensu stricto (Ipswichian: Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5e, 130–115 ka BP) and Last Glacial (Devensian: MIS 3, 61–24 ka BP) were two distinct populations, the Ipswichian hyaenas becoming extinct in Britain during MIS 5 and the Devensian ones arriving via a subsequent migration from continental Europe. However, the apparent presence of hyaenas in later MIS 5 deposits has led to the alternative suggestion that there was a southern relict population from which the Devensian hyaenas originated. We obtained ancient DNA (aDNA) sequences from four Devensian hyaena specimens from Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, dated to around 45 ka 14C BP. Each of these four specimens belonged to the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) clade A. This clade is not thought to have been present in Europe until ~360 ka BP, after the initial arrival of hyaenas in Britain. The DNA results, therefore, suggest that there were at least two waves of hyaena dispersals into Britain. The results are consistent with the repeated dispersals into Britain of another Pleistocene social carnivore, Homo sapiens.

Marks of Sanctity? Discovery of Rock Art on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales

Britain is regarded by some as an Upper Palaeolithic cultural backwater, but this part of northwestern Europe also encountered the ravages of the Devensian with the southern limit of the ice margin extending a few kilometers north of the limestone caves on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Following sudden climatic warming, groups of hunter/fisher/gatherers started to utilize this sometimes hostile landscape, seasonally occupying many of the caves that are cut and shaped into the limestone outcropping that frequents the Gower Peninsula. At this time an extensive landmass would have replaced much of the present Bristol Channel (Jacobi 1980). It is indeed a rare occurrence for Pleistocene rock art to be discovered within the British Isles, with only one authenticated discovery made in 2003 at Church Hole Cave at Creswell Crags on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border (Bahn and Pettitt 2009). It is not too fanciful to suggest that in order to secure a successful hunt or merely to revere a spiritual being that metaphysically occupied the rear section of the cave, artists were engraving within its hidden recesses. This short article announces and contextually describes a recent discovery of probable Pleistocene rock art on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales.

Palaeolithic and Quaternary research in the Trent Valley (UK): contributions by early collectors

A brief history is presented here of the activities of the three most notable collectors of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Quaternary river terrace deposits in the Trent Valley, derived from archival material that has been largely ignored by previous research. Two, Mr. Fred W.G. Davey and Mr. George F. Turton, were local amateur collectors who did not publish the results of their work themselves and were reliant on collaboration with established archaeologists. The third, Mr. A. Leslie Armstrong, was an archaeologist best known for his work at Creswell Crags and Grimes Graves. Armstrong also made many Palaeolithic discoveries in the Trent Valley but published few details of his own material. Although such details of early Palaeolithic research in the Midlands and North of Britain are predominantly of historical interest only, they nonetheless provide a number of insights into the apparent lack of interest shown in areas north of the ‘Severn–Wash Line’ by collectors of Palaeolithic artefacts. Importantly, the dataset assembled by the Trent Valley Palaeolithic Project (TVPP) and summarized here is the only complete record of the known artefacts and archival material from the Trent, a proportion of which is now unavailable to the research community, having entered unknown private ownership since being studied. The second part of the paper relates this early research to current knowledge of the British Palaeolithic at its most northern fringes and to recent developments in reconstructing the Quaternary evolution of the River Trent.

An Extensive Late Upper Palaeolithic Flint Scatter at Farndon Fields, Near Newark, Nottinghamshire

In 1991, nine Late Upper Palaeolithic flint artefacts were recovered by fieldwalking in advance of the proposed upgrading of the A46 Fosse Way; subsequent detailed fieldwalking and test-pitting have recovered over three hundred broadly contemporary struck items scattered over an area of some 15 ha. This flint was initially identifiable from other (later) prehistoric flintwork by its large size and cortication (i.e. white-blue surface), also by its technological and morphological traits distinctive of the earlier part of the Late Upper Palaeolithic, dated in south-western cave sites to the Lateglacial Interstadial, with radiocarbon determinations in the mid-thirteenth millennium BP. As at contemporary sites, raw materials seem to have been utilized from non-local sources (trace-element analysis suggests southern England), though the comparatively large number of flakes and blades with cortex suggests that preparation of raw materials was not as extensive as on some cave sites, even though the same flint sources were being used. Artefacts have been recovered from the ploughsoil and from the upper 0.10 m of subsoil overlying a fluvial gravel terrace close to the confluence of the Rivers Devon and Trent, Nottinghamshire. The scatter includes two clusters of artefacts, one initially located in 1993 and now perhaps wholly incorporated into the ploughsoil, the other, discovered only in 2005, lying at the edge of more recent alluvium, so perhaps better preserved. The dominant tool type is the scraper, and the rarity of points interpretable as weapon-heads may imply that the scatter represents primarily processing sites rather than a killing-ground. The different forms of the only two near-complete points may hint at a series of visits, rather than a short-term aggregation site. The potential links between hunters visiting the caves of Creswell Crags, a crossing of the Trent, and the processing of hide/bone/antler are explored.

Palaeolithic art at Creswell Crags in European context

Palaeolithic art at Creswell Crags in European context

Verification of the age of the Palaeolithic cave art at Creswell Crags, UK

Engravings representing Britain's first apparently Pleistocene cave art were discovered in Church Hole and Robin Hood caves, Creswell Crags. Representations of a deer, highly stylised females or birds and vulvae were engraved into the bedrock, and in some cases had been covered with a thin layer of flowstone. In the absence of radiocarbon datable pigments, uranium-series disequilibrium dating was undertaken on these flowstones to provide minimum ages for the engravings. Here we show that the oldest motif was carved earlier than 12,800 years ago which is consistent with radiocarbon dates for the Late Upper Palaeolithic archaeology at Creswell Crags. Thus we demonstrate the authenticity of the engravings and show them to be the oldest known examples in Britain.

U‐series dating of the Late Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Wood Quarry (Steetley), Nottinghamshire, UK

AbstractWe present the U‐series dating of bones from Wood Quarry (‘Steetley Quarry Cave’) using the diffusion–adsorption model to account for uranium uptake. The results give a weighted mean date of 66.8 ± 3.0 kyr, placing this assemblage within or just before Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 4. The fauna is thought to correlate with the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage‐zone of the Early Devensian in Britain. Our results support the idea that this assemblage‐zone immediately precedes the assemblage represented nearby at Pin Hole in Creswell Crags which is contemporary with the Mid‐Devensian and correlates with MIS 3. Our dates, and dates for the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage‐zone from Stump Cross Cavern and evidence from other sites may indicate a longevity for this fauna. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Palaeolithic Cave Engravings at Creswell Crags, England

A series of undoubtedly Palaeolithic engraved figures have been recorded for the first time in the United Kingdom in Church Hole Cave, Creswell Crags. The first recorded images were thought initially to be two birds and a large ibex. This paper presents the preliminary results of the first systematic survey of the caves for engravings which identified a total of 16 figures. On closer examination with correct lighting the ibex was seen to be a stag, accompanied by a bison and another herbivore. The presence of the birds was confirmed and at least one other bovid and several other images, including possible vulvas, were identified.

Discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain

We are pleased to present here a preliminary account of the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain.On 14 April 2003 we made the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain. Since portable art of the period has long been known in this country (Sieveking 1972; Campbell 1977: vol. 2, figs 102, 105, 143), it has always seemed probable that parietal art must also have existed. We knew that we were most unlikely to discover paintings, since these are generally quite visible; but as far as we knew, nobody with a trained eye and advantageous lighting had combed the British caves in search of engravings, which are often extremely difficult to see. Such was the purpose of our initial survey and, sure enough, we rapidly encountered engraved marks in a number of caves, which we will be investigating more fully and systematically in the near future. At the well-known sites of Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, we found both figurative and non-figurative engravings of the period. What follows is a brief, preliminary announcement of a discovery soon to be further amplified in print following systematic investigation.

Radon in the Creswell Crags Permian limestone caves

An investigation of radon levels in the caves of Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, an important Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) shows that the Lower Magnesian Limestone (Permian) caves have moderate to raised radon gas levels (27-7800 Bq m −3) which generally increase with increasing distance into the caves from the entrance regions. This feature is partly explained in terms of cave ventilation and topography. While these levels are generally below the Action Level in the workplace (400 Bq m −3 in the UK), they are above the Action Level for domestic properties (200 Bq m −3). Creswell Crags has approximately 40,000 visitors per year and therefore a quantification of effective dose is important for both visitors and guides to the Robin Hood show cave. Due to short exposure times the dose received by visitors is low (0.0016 mSv/visit) and regulations concerning exposure are not contravened. Similarly, the dose received by guides is fairly low (0.4 mSv/annum) due in part to current working practice. However, the risk to researchers entering the more inaccessible areas of the cave system is higher (0.06 mSv/visit). This survey also investigated the effect of seasonal variations on recorded radon concentration. From this work summer to winter ratios of between 1.1 and 9.51 were determined for different locations within the largest cave system.

Radiometric dating of the Middle Palaeolithic tool industry and associated fauna of Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags, England

Uranium-series dating of derived speleothem suggests that the sediments enclosing a Middle Palaeolithic stone artefact assemblage in Pin Hole Cave probably accumulated after about 64 ka, and 14C dates indicate a likely age of > 40 ka for the large mammal fauna associated with it. Electron spin resonance data from the fauna conform with these age constraints and are consistent with accumulation between 38 and 50 ka. This evidence supports the view that Britain was recolonised by hominids during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3. Stratigraphically higher stone tool industries demonstrate the local presence of both early Upper and late Upper Palaeolithic cultures. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Radiometric dating of the Middle Palaeolithic tool industry and associated fauna of Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags, England

Radiometric dating of the Middle Palaeolithic tool industry and associated fauna of Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags, England