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From 'cave men' to cannibals
The 'cave men' of popular imagination may never have existed in the form that they are usually portrayed. Nevertheless, in the right circumstances, the unique preservation conditions often found in caves can open a remarkable window onto our distant past. From the remains of a Neanderthal burial, with flowers apparently laid upon the grave, to the Qumran scrolls, which contain the earliest surviving examples of parts of the New Testament gospels, caves have provided some of our most important archaeological discoveries.
The archaeology of caves presents special problems as well as special opportunities – as Time Team has found during its excavations underground. For example, the first time the Team ventured into this subterranean world, at Cooper's Hole, Cheddar, during the 1999 series, heavy rain and flooding almost washed away the whole operation. Undeterred by the experience, the Team has since investigated two more cave sites: the so-called 'cannibal cave' at Alveston, Gloucestershire, for a Time Team Special in the 2001 series; and at Carsington, Derbyshire, for the 2003 series.
Here, in an extended version of an article that first appeared in Time Team's Trench One magazine, Steve Platt looks at the fascinating world of cave archaeology
A cave under the sea
When archaeologists came to investigate the Cosquer cave, at Cape Morgiou, near Marseille, after its discovery was first made known to the world in 1991, they were faced with a problem. For the cave, which contains some of the world's oldest rock art, can only be reached through a tunnel that is 175 metres long – and 37 metres beneath the sea.
French researchers at one stage considered digging an inland entrance to the cave. But the idea was rejected after climatological tests showed that the cave's atmosphere is under pressure. Any change might result in the water level rising and some of the precious cave paintings being damaged or lost. 'We're taking no chances,' said Jean Clottes, the Paleolithic art expert who, along with Jean Courtin, was among the first archaeologists to study the cave after its discovery by the diver, Henri Cosquer.
As a result, the archaeologists conducting the investigation of the Cosquer cave have also had to be – or become – experienced divers. All equipment has had to be carried in special waterproof containers through the cave's treacherous entrance passageways. Three divers died here in 1992, after which the cave was closed to public access, and every visit to its innermost chamber by the research team has carried with it difficulties and dangers not normally associated with an archaeological investigation.
Cave paintings and carvings
This has not prevented the Cosquer cave being intensively studied. Its entrance would have been well above sea level – and about 11 kilometres from the coast – during the last glacial, when its paintings and carvings were made. But the fact that it has been submerged since the melting of the glaciers, protecting it from later human, animal or climatological disturbance, has made it especially important as an underwater window on the prehistoric past.
In all, researchers have found around 150 rock paintings and carvings in the cave. These include depictions of many animals, as well as the famous stencils of human handprints, formed by the artist holding a hand against the cave wall and spitting pigment around it to form its outline. Radiocarbon tests carried out on sample scrapes from the paintings date the earliest to almost 28,000 years old and the most recent to around 18,000 years old. The research team also took sophisticated photogrammetric and laser recording equipment along the 175-metre tunnel into the cave to measure and map it and photograph and record the rock art. The 3D information obtained in this way was used to build an exact replica of the cave to cater for tourists.
The problems with caves
Few caves pose quite the same logistical difficulties for archaeologists as this one, but they do all pose special problems and challenges. Difficulty of access, potential safety hazards and ill-lit, confined working conditions are common to most cave sites. The conditions found there often require highly specialised excavation techniques. And the scarcity of the archaeology they sometimes contain, marking periods of use going back tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, means that special care has to be taken to examine, record and preserve them properly.
Modern archaeologists are very protective of cave sites, not least because some of them are among our very few sources of information about life in the Palaeolithic era, in addition to whatever more recent archaeology they might reveal. There are very few undisturbed Palaeolithic sites and many of those excavated in the past, when the techniques available to archaeologists were not as sophisticated as they are today, were ruined for future study by ill-considered or indiscriminate digging.
As Time Team series producer Tim Taylor writes in his book, Behind the Scenes at Time Team, 'Palaeolithic archaeologists have too many memories in their collective consciousness of caves destroyed by excessive and careless excavation in the past, and have become ultra-sensitive to the methods used to tease out evidence.' He relates how, when Time Team wanted to excavate the little-known Cooper's Cave, in the Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, for the 1999 series, some senior archaeologists expressed great concern about the dig going ahead at all. The Team agreed to an excavation that did not penetrate the protective 'stal', or calcareous coating, which covers the earliest layers (prior to about 7000 BC) on the cave's floor, except where this had already been broken by cavers.
Full archaeological investigations of caves used in prehistory can be painstakingly slow – and well beyond the capabilities of a three-day Time Team dig. One reason why caves can be so important for archaeology is that they tend to be protected from erosion by the weather or disturbance by human activities such as ploughing or building. This means that a cave floor can build up an unbroken stratigraphy – different layers of material, or strata – revealing a chronology of use going right back to hominid origins. But the complex and sometimes barely perceptible changes between layers must be excavated and recorded meticulously to enable researchers to tie in every find or sample – right down to the last grain of pollen – to the precise layer and position in which they were discovered.
Neanderthal grave flowers
This precision matters. One of the most famous of all cave discoveries was that of the remains of an elderly Neanderthal man, curled up in the foetal position, in the Shanidar cave in Iraq. When soil samples were tested a few years after the initial excavation, it was found that some of those taken from close to the man's remains contained large quantities of pollen from flowering plants such as yarrow, groundsel, cornflower, St Barnaby's thistle, grape hyacinth, woody horsetail and rose mallow.
This was interpreted as flowers having been laid around the man's body after his death – evidence of the essential 'humanity' of the Neanderthal species, seen here as family members mourning the death of a loved one. (Ralph Solecki, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation, subtitled his popular book on Shanidar, published in the 1960s, The First Flower People.) Later it was shown that many of the plant species for which pollen was found at Shanidar have medicinal properties, leading to the suggestion that the man might have been some sort of shaman or 'medicine man'.
Either way, it was only the application of modern sampling techniques and stratigraphic analysis that enabled researchers to identify the pollen and connect it with the human remains at all. Recently, however, some archaeologists have begun to argue that this still wasn't good enough. One study in 1993 concluded that given the complexities of cave stratigraphies and the techniques of the time (the excavation was conducted between 1951-57), the pollen could have got there in a number of ways – it might even have been introduced during the excavation itself.
Another study, in 1996, pointed out that the original report on Shanidar had noted the presence of rodent holes around the skeleton, together with the bones of a species of rodent – Persian jirds – that is still found in the area. These animals are known to store large quantities of seeds and flowers in their burrows, and an analysis of samples from some of these found they contained many of the same flowers as at Shanidar. Could they and not mourning Neanderthals have been responsible for the concentration of pollen at this site? We will probably never know for certain because the very precise stratigraphy that would be needed to give a definitive answer cannot now be reconstructed.
Stratigraphy and context
Of course, the same general principles of stratigraphy and context apply to all archaeological excavations. But the stratigraphy of cave sites tends to be concentrated in a smaller physical space than elsewhere and to cover a longer timescale. It needs special care in excavation – and special protection from damage or contamination.
So when, for instance, the Chauvet cave system, which contains some 450 Palaeolithic paintings and engravings, was discovered in the Ardeche region of France in the mid-1990s, a number of steps had to be taken before archaeologists could even think about excavating. A suitable entrance and safety measures had to be put in place. Special walkways and footbridges had to be built to protect the floor surface. And because cave paintings and other artefacts are particularly vulnerable to alterations in the microclimate of the cave, its moisture, temperature and carbon dioxide content had to be constantly monitored to look out for harmful changes.
Then came the task of fully mapping and recording the cave. Some of the information that might now be obtained from past excavations has been lost forever because of the failure to map cave excavation sites effectively. Modern photogrammetric and laser recording techniques make the job easier. And archaeologists now ensure that they get a more precise record of the location of finds by attaching the grids they use to map excavations to fixed points in a cave's ceiling rather than simply resting them on the surface of the archaeology.
Bringing the roof down
'One of the problems with cave excavations is that you are standing on the archaeology all the time,' says former Time Team regular Mick 'the Dig' Worthington. 'It's very difficult to record everything accurately.' Mick, an industrial archaeology specialist, has undertaken a number of excavations of old mines, which he says are no different in principle than cave archaeology: 'Except you never touch the wood in mines -- it might bring the roof down!'
The bane of Mick's underground archaeology experience is water – which he encounters in abundance in old mine workings. 'At least in a cave, it's been cut by water and has its own natural drainage. Mines would have had water pumps and when they are no longer working the shafts and tunnels are often flooded.'
Mud bath in Cheddar
It can happen in caves too, of course. When Time Team excavated the Cooper's Hole cave in the Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, for the 1999 series, Mick and the other diggers were almost overwhelmed by heavy rain that turned the cave into a mud bath. 'This slushy, horrible mud got into every crack, every crevice. If the dig had been outside, you would either have stopped digging until the rain stopped or got a pump to drain the trench. Here we just had to carry on. It was really hard work.'
The diggers at Cooper's Hole were also encumbered by heavy dry suits and safety gear. 'Safety and levels of fitness are both much more important than in normal digs,' says Mick. 'You've got to have all the right gear. You must always work in pairs. You have to make sure people don't get too tired and aren't able to get out again, which is how most accidents happen in caving.' Mick had to pull out of a cave excavation for the 2001 series of Time Team at Alveston, Gloucestershire, when a knee injury meant that he might be a risk to himself or others.
Nonetheless, despite their special difficulties and discomforts, Mick believes that caves and underground places have a special appeal for archaeologists. Whether it be uncovering evidence of our earliest ancestors, such as at the Closquer or Shanidar caves, or tracing our more recent industrial heritage in an old tin or lead mine, they have the capacity to capture the imagination as well as to inform us about our past.