Paviland Cave is a rockshelter on the Gower Coast of south Wales dated to the Early Upper Paleolithic period somewhere between 30,000-20,000 years ago. The cave contains the partial skeleton of a young man, intentionally buried, whose remains had been heavily stained with red ochre. The poor gent, discovered in the early 19th century, was referred to for years as the "Red Lady".
Paviland has been tentatively identified as belonging to the Aurignacian period. Climatic investigations at the site suggest that the occupation occurred during a brief warming period during the last gasp of the Ice Age, between about 29,000 and 21,000 years ago. The published date for The Red Lady is 26,000 years ago, although a report in the BBC news in 2007 quoted 29,000.
Paviland Cave was first excavated in the early 1820s, and again the early 20th century by W.J. Sollas. Re-investigations of the previous excavations were conducted by Stephen Aldhouse-Green at the University of Wales, Newport.
Sources
Aldhouse-Green, Stephen 2001. Great Sites: Paviland Cave. Current Archaeology 61 (very useful text available online)
Aldhouse-Green, Stephen. 1998. Paviland Cave: Contextualizing the 'Red Lady'. Antiquity 72(278):756–772.
Jones, Tim. 2007. Red Ochre Burial at Goat's Hole Cave Dated to 29,000 bp. Remote Central. Blog report on BBC news story with context and links.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
