Bacon Hole Rock Art Dated as Britain's Oldest at 17,100 Years
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- Bacon Hole cave art has been dated to 17,100 years ago via uranium-thorium analysis of red pigment, making it the oldest rock art in Britain and north-western Europe.
- Dr George Nash of the University of Coimbra led the international team whose findings revive a 1912 discovery by professors William Sollas and Henri Breuil — dismissed as natural mineral seeping through rock by 1928.
- Archaeometric analysis identified calcite and clay in the pigment recipe, with equidistant horizontal lines concluded to be "intentionally created by human agency" and applied by finger.
- The research, published in the journal Quaternary, is being formally announced this week by the National Trust of Wales, which holds custodianship of the cave.
- The researchers argue the cave should be designated a scheduled monument, noting it currently lacks that protected status despite sitting within an area of outstanding natural beauty on the limestone cliffs of south Gower.
- Roughly 17,100 years ago, Wales was emerging from the Devensian glaciation, with the Bristol Channel shoreline offering a favorable catchment for migratory megafauna and hunter-fisher-gatherer habitation.
Why it matters: A century-old archaeological dismissal has been overturned with hard science, pushing the earliest known date for human creative activity in Britain back to 17,100 years ago. The team is now pushing for scheduled-monument status — a legal protection the Gower cave currently lacks despite its significance.
