Kents Cavern

, Also known as Kents Cavern Kent's Hole is a large limestone cave in the town of Torquay, south of the English county of Devon. In the oldest known cave dwelling in the UK there are Palaeolithic evidence of human activity along with those of extinct animals. The prehistoric finds have partially an age of about 450,000 years. Worth seeing are still the stalactites of the cave.

Research

The first probably Father J. McEnery has recognized the importance of the examined by him in the years 1825-1829 top sites. He had found flint tools, which were mixed with Pleistocene animal bones and covered by a Stalagmitenschicht. The William Pengelly from 1865-1880 excavations carried out finally provided clear evidence. Over time, a total of six layers were discovered deposits. The top- contained pieces from the Roman era, the early Iron Age and the Bronze Age. Among them were polished artifacts of stone and metal, pottery and human bones. The lower Paleolithic layers contained except human bones and tools and bones of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer and giant deer.

Also significant finds of Neanderthals has been made in Kents Cavern, who colonized the southern, unglaciated part of the UK around 60,000 years ago.

These is mainly a 1927 found part of a human maxilla ( Fossil designation KC 4 of custody Torquay Museum ), which was referred to in the first publication of Arthur Keith applicable as anatomically modern man. A direct AMS dating in 1989 yielded an uncalibrated age of 30,900 ± 900 years BP ( OXA -1621 ). In 2011 obtained with ultrafiltration AMS data on animal bones from the same layer were able to show that the calibrated age of the maxilla BP is to be set to 44200-41500 cal. If the date is incorrect, the fragment would belong to the oldest remains of modern humans in Europe and be older than the Red Lady of Paviland. However, reference was made in 2012 that the exact locality of the fossil has not been adequately documented precisely; was therefore no guarantee that the Fund actually layer the fossil was dated.

Tourist use

Kents Cavern was acquired in 1903 by Francis Powe and has since been owned by the family. Originally used for commercial purposes, later paved roads were in the cave created and installed electric light. With 80,000 visitors a year, provides Kents Cavern Torquay a major tourist attraction dar.