| Summary: | Cow Cave is a well-known archaeological and palaeontological site in the wall of Chudleigh
Gorge, Devon, England. The cave is choked after a short distance with allochthonous sediments and
speleothem accumulations. Palaeontological excavations at the cave in 1927 to 1935, and again in 1962 to 1963, yielded a rich Pleistocene fauna and several stone tools. However, in the absence of radiometric dating, the faunal composition was ambiguous with respect to age. Here, we report the first radiometric dates on the site. Two Thermal Ionization Mass spectrometric uranium series disequilibrium dates place a critical speleothem layer from within the Cow Cave sediments in the warmer intervals of the MIS 6
glacial period, and suggest that the basal sediments entrained a fauna and human artefacts from the preceding MIS 7 interglacial period, the Aveley. |
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