Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-k7rjm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-09T08:47:47.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The demonstration of human antiquity: three rediscovered illustrations from the 1825 and 1846 excavations in Kent's Cavern (Torquay, England)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M.J. White  and
P.B. Pettitt
M.J. White
Affiliation:
1Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK (Email: m.j.white@durham.ac.uk)
P.B. Pettitt
Affiliation:
2Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield S1 4ET, UK (Email: p.pettitt@sheffield.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The authors disentangle the fascinating tale of the investigations in Kent's Cavern, iconic site for the acceptance of early man. The drawings they have discovered in the archives of the Geological Society are the only ones known from the earliest excavations and they are published here for the first time. As this paper shows, it takes intellectual courage to be an archaeologist. Whatever the enormity of his challenge to contemporary religion, I like to think that MacEnery would have been fairly supported by Antiquity's reviewing system. But perhaps our doctrinal challenges are lesser ones.…

Keywords

BritainKent's CavernPalaeolithicearly man

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 321 , September 2009 , pp. 758 - 768
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

References

Buckland, W. 1823. Reliquiae Diluvianae: observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures and diluvial gravel attesting the action of an universal deluge. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Frere, J. 1800. Account of flint weapons discovered at Hoxne in Suffolk. Archaeologia 13: 204–5, Plates XIV-XV.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, L. & Kruszynski, R.. 2009. John Evans, Joseph Prestwich and the stone that shattered the time barrier. Antiquity 83: 461–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D. K. 1983. The establishment of human antiquity. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kennard, A. S. 1945. The early digs in Kent's Hole, Torquay, and Mrs Cazalet. Proceedings of the Geological Association 56(3): 156–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macenery, J. & Vivian, E.. 1859. Cavern researches, or discoveries of organic remains, and of British and Roman reliques, in the caves of Kent's Hole, Anstis Cove, Chudleigh, and Berry Head. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.Google Scholar
Pengelly, W. 1868. The literature of Kent's Cavern, Part I. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 1: 469–522.Google Scholar
Pengelly, W. 1869. The literature of Kent's Cavern, Part II. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 3: 191–482.Google Scholar
Pengelly, W. 1871. The literature of Kent's Cavern, Part III. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 4: 467–90.Google Scholar
Pengelly, W. 1878. The literature of Kent's Cavern, Part IV. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 10: 141–81.Google Scholar
Pengelly, W. 1884. The literature of Kent's Cavern, Part V. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 14: 189–434.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M.J.S. 1992. Scenes from deep time: early pictorial representations of the prehistoric world. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudwick, M.J.S. 2005. Bursting the limits of time: the reconstruction of geohistory in the age of revolution. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommer, M. 2003. The romantic cave? The scientific and poetic quests for subterranean spaces in Britain. Earth Sciences History 22(2): 172–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommer, M. 2007. Bones and ochre: the curious afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland. Cambridge (MA) & London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weston, R. 2008. John Traherne, FSA, and William Buckland's ‘Red Lady’. The Antiquaries Journal 88: 347–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Internet resources

(http://www.devon.gov.uk/localstudies/100143/1.html) – last accessed March 2009Google Scholar
(http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060075b.htm) – last accessed March 2009Google Scholar