Abstract
The impressive Wogan Cavern, lying beneath Pembroke Castle, has been subject to several historic phases of antiquarian investigation. None of these is well documented, however, so little can be said about the cave's archaeological status. Here we summarize previous work at Wogan Cavern and describe the initial results of our 2021 fieldwork at the site, focussing mostly on our investigations close to the cave's eastern wall. Despite the restricted extent of our excavation, it is clear that Wogan Cavern has significant archaeological potential. We identified an intact Early Holocene archaeological layer containing diagnostic Mesolithic artefacts in the eastern part of the cave, sealed beneath a flowstone floor. Underlying this stratigraphically, securely within Pleistocene deposits, is a layer containing palaeontological and possible archaeological material. Elsewhere in the cave there is clear evidence for large-scale disturbance, although initial indications are that substantial intact deposits of ancient sediments might remain. Overall, the nature and richness of Wogan Cavern's Mesolithic archaeological remains, as well as the existence of Pleistocene fauna and possible presence of an intact Palaeolithic layer, demonstrate its importance as an early prehistoric site. Future work will aim further to establish the extent of its archaeological potential.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 65-72 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Cave and Karst Science |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 27 May 2022 |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to numerous people for their help with our work on Wogan Cavern, including (but not limited to) Jon Williams and the staff at Pembroke Castle, Sian Williams, several colleagues at Dyfed Archaeological Trust, Mark Lewis and Eloise Chapman at Tenby Museum, and Louise Mees at Cadw. We are also grateful to the reviewers for a careful reading of this article and for providing some insightful comments, and to David Lowe, whose comments and advice benefitted the final version of the Paper. The work described here and that planned for the future is funded by the Natural History Museum’s Human Origins Research Fund, the BCRA’s CSTRF scheme, and the Prehistoric Society. ELJ acknowledges the Belspo-ICHIE project for funding her contribution to this research.