Editing Red Lady of Paviland

{{Short description|33,000-year-old human remains in Swansea, Wales}}
{{About|the Welsh skeleton||Red Lady (disambiguation){{!}}Red Lady}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox Artifact|name=Red "Lady" of Paviland|image=[[File:Red Lady of Paviland from feet.jpg|220px]]|image_caption=Remains as seen from the feet|material=[[Bone]]|created=|discovered=|location=|native_name={{native_name|cy|"Dynes" Goch Pafiland}}|discovered_place=[[Goat's Hole Cave]], [[Gower Peninsula]], [[Wales]]|discovered_date=1823|period=[[Paleolithic era]]|discovered_by=[[William Buckland]]}}The '''Red "Lady" of Paviland''' ({{langx|cy|"Dynes" Goch Pafiland}})<ref>{{Cite web |title=BBC - Cymru - Hanes - Themau - Cymru cyn Cristnogaeth |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/hanes/safle/themau/crefydd/cymrucyncristnogaeth.shtml |access-date=2023-02-11 |website=www.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> is an [[Upper Paleolithic]] partial male skeleton dyed in [[red ochre]] and buried in [[Wales]] 33,000 [[Before Present|BP]] (approximately 31,000 BCE).<ref>{{cite journal |pmc=2752538 |pmid=19706482 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0903821106 |volume=106 |issue=38 |title=Out of Africa: modern human origins special feature: isotopic evidence for the diets of European Neanderthals and early modern humans |date=September 2009 |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA |pages=16034–16039 |last1=Richards |first1=M. P. |last2=Trinkaus |first2=E. |bibcode=2009PNAS..10616034R |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="BBC news">{{cite web |date=30 October 2007 |title=Ancient skeleton was 'even older' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7069001.stm |access-date=29 December 2010 |work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref> The bones were discovered in 1823 by [[William Buckland]] in an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave (Paviland cave) which is a [[limestone]] cave between [[Port Eynon]] and [[Rhossili]] on the [[Gower Peninsula]], near [[Swansea]] in south [[Wales]].<ref name="BBC news" /> Buckland believed the skeleton was a Roman era female. Later, William Solace examined Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was in fact a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=2023-01-13 |title=Red Lady of Paviland: Should remains come back to Wales? |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-64264413 |access-date=2023-01-15}}</ref>

Goat's Hole was occupied throughout prehistory. Artefacts are predominantly [[Aurignacian]], but also include examples from the earlier [[Mousterian]], and later [[Gravettian]] and [[Creswellian]] periods.<ref name=Aldhouse-Green/> The site is the oldest known ceremonial burial in Western Europe.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nature |first=Ewen |last=Callaway |title=Archaeology: Date with history |date=2 May 2012 |volume=485 |pages=27–29 |issue=7396 |doi=10.1038/485027a |pmid=22552075 |bibcode=2012Natur.485...27C|doi-access=free}}</ref>

There have been calls to return the red skeleton of Paviland to Wales where it was discovered and also specifically to Swansea.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-25 |title=Buried treasure: calls for important Welsh artefacts to be brought back home |url=https://nation.cymru/news/buried-treasure-calls-for-important-welsh-artefacts-to-be-brought-back-home/ |access-date=2022-02-10 |website=Nation.Cymru |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

==History==

=== Discovery ===
In 1822, Daniel Davies and the Rev John Davies found animal bones, including the [[tusk]] of a [[mammoth]]. The Talbot family of [[Penrice Castle]] was informed and found "bones of elephants" on 27 December 1822. [[William Buckland]], Professor of [[Geology]] at [[Oxford University]] arrived on 18 January 1823 and spent a week at the location site, Goat's Hole.<ref name="britarch.ac.uk">{{Cite web |url=http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml |title=British Archaeology magazine, October 2001 |access-date=2006-01-13 |archive-date=2006-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060228141222/http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref> Later that year, writing about his find in his book ''Reliquiae Diluvianae'' (Remains or [[relic]]s of the Flood), Buckland stated: {{blockquote|I found the skeleton enveloped by a coating of a kind of ruddle [ [[ochre]] ] ... which stained the earth, and in some parts extended itself to the distance of about half an inch [12 mm] around the surface of the bones ... Close to that part of the thigh bone where the pocket is usually worn surrounded also by ruddle [were] about two handfuls of the ''Nerita littoralis'' [periwinkle shells]. At another part of the [[skeleton]], ''viz'' in contact with the ribs [were] forty or fifty fragments of [[ivory]] rods [also] some small fragments of rings made of the same ivory and found with the rods ... Both rods and rings, as well as the ''Nerite'' shells, were stained superficially with red and lay in the same red substance that enveloped the bones}}

Buckland's treatise misjudged both its age and sex.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sommer|first= Marianne |title=Bones and ochre: the curious afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland|year=2007|page= 1|publisher=Harvard University Press}}</ref><ref>[http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/buckland.pdf William Buckland] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180422005923/http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/buckland.pdf |date=22 April 2018 }} www.oum.ox.ac. Accessed August 3, 2008</ref> He believed that human remains could not be older than the [[Bible|Biblical]] [[Great Flood (Biblical)|Great Flood]], and thus wildly underestimated its true age, believing the remains to date to the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] era.<ref name=Aldhouse-Green>{{cite journal |last=Aldhouse-Green |first=Stephen |editor-last=Denison |editor-first=Simon |year=2001 |title=Great Sites: Paviland Cave |journal=British Archaeology |issue=61 |issn=1357-4442 |url=http://www.archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml |access-date=3 August 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923173544/http://www.archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml |archive-date=23 September 2015 }}</ref> Buckland believed the skeleton was female largely because it was discovered with decorative items, including perforated [[seashell]] [[necklace]]s and jewellery thought to be of elephant ivory but now known to be carved from the tusk of a mammoth.<ref name="Sykes pages 15-17">[[Brian Sykes|Sykes, Brian]], ''Blood of the Isles'' pages 15-17 (Bantam, 2006)</ref>

=== Later findings ===
[[File:Red Lady of Paviland from head.jpg|thumb|Remains as seen from the head]]
William Solace made an expedition to Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was, in fact, a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age. Over the last 100 years the date estimated by Solace has been shifted from the Mesolithic period (4-10,000 BCE) to the Palaeolithic era (35,000/10,000 BCE) of the last Ice Age.<ref name=":0" /> However, before [[radiocarbon dating]] was invented in the 1950s, there was no existing scientific method for the determination of the age of any [[prehistoric]] remains.<ref name="britarch.ac.uk" /> 

In the 1960s, [[Kenneth Oakley]] published a radiocarbon determination of 18,460 ± 340 BP.<ref name="britarch.ac.uk" />  Results published in 1989 and 1995 suggest that the individual from the cave lived about 26,000 years ago (26,350 ± 550 BP, OxA-1815), during the later periods of the Upper [[Paleolithic]]. A 2007 examination by [[Thomas Higham (archaeologist)|Thomas Higham]] of [[Oxford University]] and [[Roger Jacobi]] of the [[British Museum]] suggested a dating of 29,000 years ago.<ref>*Jacobi, R. M and Higham, T. F. G: "The 'Red Lady' ages gracefully: New Ultrafiltration AMS determinations from Paviland", ''Journal of Human Evolution'', 2008</ref> A recalibration of the results in 2009 suggest an age of 33,000 years.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Although now on the coast, at the time of the burial, the cave would have been located approximately 110&nbsp;km (70 miles) inland, overlooking a plain. When the remains were dated to some 26,000 years ago, it was thought the "Red Lady" lived at a time when an ice sheet of the most recent glacial period in the British Isles, called the [[Devensian Glaciation]], would have been advancing towards the site, and that consequently the weather would have been more like that of present-day [[Siberia]], with maximum temperatures of perhaps 10°[[celsius|C]] in summer, −20° in winter, and a [[tundra]] vegetation. The new dating, however, indicates he lived during a warmer period.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Bone protein analysis indicates that he lived on a diet of between 15% and 20% fish, which, together with the distance from the sea, suggests that the people may have been semi-[[nomad]]ic, or that the tribe transported the body from a coastal region for burial.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

When the skeleton was discovered, Wales lacked a museum to house it, so it was moved to Oxford University, where Buckland was a professor.  The bones are currently on display at the [[Oxford University Museum of Natural History]]. In December 2007, it was loaned for a year to the [[National Museum Cardiff]]. Subsequent excavations yielded more than 4,000 [[flint]]s, teeth and bones, needles and bracelets, which are on exhibit at [[Swansea Museum]] and the National Museum in Cardiff.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

==Evidence of earliest modern humans==
Analysis of the evidence from the two excavations at [[Long Hole Cave]] on the [[Gower Peninsula]], including sediment and pollen as well as the lithic evidence, has identified Long Hole as an [[Aurignacian]] site contemporary with and related to the site at [[Paviland]], evidence of the first modern humans in Britain.<ref name="Dinnis">{{cite journal|last1=Dinnis|first1=R|title=Identification Of Longhole (Gower) As An Aurignacian Site|journal=Lithics: The Journal of the Lithic Studies Society|date=2012|volume=33|pages=17–29|url=http://journal.lithics.org/index.php/lithics/article/view/347|access-date=3 August 2016|archive-date=27 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827010745/http://journal.lithics.org/index.php/lithics/article/view/347|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Proposed return to Wales ==
{{Main|Welsh artefacts in museums outside Wales}}

The Red Lady of Paviland (which is actually a [[man]]) was discovered in 1823 by [[William Buckland]] a geology professor at [[Oxford University]], and it was quickly transported to Oxford thereafter (some other artefacts were later repatriated).<ref name=":02">{{Cite news |date=2023-01-13 |title=Red Lady of Paviland: Should remains come back to Wales? |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-64264413 |access-date=2023-01-15}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last1=Reynolds |first1=Ffion |last2=Mulville |first2=Jacqui |title=Red Lady of Paviland: the story of a 33,000 year-old-skeleton – and the calls for it to return to Wales |url=http://theconversation.com/red-lady-of-paviland-the-story-of-a-33-000-year-old-skeleton-and-the-calls-for-it-to-return-to-wales-197204 |access-date=2023-01-22 |website=The Conversation |date=18 January 2023 |language=en}}</ref> This prompted a two-century campaign for it to be repatriated.<ref name=":02" />

In January 2023, the artefact was nicknamed the ''Welsh [[Elgin Marbles]]'', after another artefact with calls for [[British Museum#Artefacts from other countries|repatriation from the British Museum to Greece]]. The Red Lady is currently on display in the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, and is described to be "well cared for". It has been stated by academics at Cardiff University, that if it were to return, it would enhance Wales's national collection and draw attention to its archaeology and caves.<ref name=":1" />

[[University of Liverpool]] and [[Coimbra University]] in Portugal Prof George Nash says, "Some have attempted to portray the remains as some sort of ancient Welsh ancestor, which is palpable nonsense. Whoever he was, he was almost certainly of African or Arabian distinction, fleeing conflict or over-crowding in his more hospitable homeland. What's more, after the brief thaw of the Palaeolithic era, Wales was cut off again for several thousand years, so there's absolutely no chance of these remains having any genetic or cultural relationship to any modern Welsh person". However, he also acknowledged that the Red Lady "is a significant part of Welsh history", and stated that if the remains could be safely returned to Wales then that "would definitely be the right thing to do".<ref name=":02" />

==See also==
* [[Archaeology of Wales]] 
* [[Barnfield Pit]]
* [[Bontnewydd Palaeolithic site]]
* [[Boxgrove Quarry]]
* [[Creswell Crags]]
* [[Gough's Cave#Human remains and occupation|Gough's Cave]]
* [[Happisburgh]]
* [[Kents Cavern]]
* [[Pakefield]]
* [[Prehistoric Wales]]

===General===
* [[Genetic history of the British Isles]]
* [[Geology of the United Kingdom]]
* [[List of human evolution fossils]]
* [[List of prehistoric structures in Great Britain]]
* [[Prehistoric Britain]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Stephen Aldhouse-Green and Paul Pettitt [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/paviland-cave-contextualizing-the-red-lady/1CE7AB86DAB0DCE1CFEBB4B3E9A2DD13 Paviland Cave: contextualizing the ‘Red Lady’] Antiquity Volume 72, Issue 278 December 1998, pp.&nbsp;756–772

==External links==
* [[University of Oxford]] [https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/red-lady-of-paviland-0 Red Lady of Paviland] [[Oxford University Museum of Natural History]], 
* [http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml British Archaeology magazine, Oct. 2001, "Great Sites: Paviland Cave"]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090529061043/http://www.explore-gower.co.uk/Content/pa=showpage/pid=33.html Paviland Cave - Explore Gower]
* [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?thold=-1&mode=flat&order=0&sid=4450 Geographical location of the cave where the remains were found]

{{coord|51|33|0.31|N|4|15|18.67|W|display=title}}

{{Gower Peninsula}}

[[Category:Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens fossils]]
[[Category:Stone Age sites in Wales]]
[[Category:Gower Peninsula]]
[[Category:Paleoanthropological sites]]
[[Category:Aurignacian]]
[[Category:1823 archaeological discoveries]]
[[Category:Prehistoric burials in Wales]]
[[Category:Prehistoric Britain]]