Dowel Cave.
Location-
Dowel Dale, Derbyshire.
O.S Grid Reference-
SK075 676.
A rarity as far as archaeologically significant caves go as it's not gated and locked. Parking near by, unless you're prepared to ask at Dowel Hall, is however impossible. The nearest places being in Glutton Bridge a little over a mile away, from here follow the single vehicle track that leads to Dowel Dale between Parkhouse and Chrome Hills; it is an easy pleasant walk with excellent scenery to enjoy.
Partial excavations carried out in 1958 and 1959 showed the cave to have been in use in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Beaker, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods. The construction of cists in one of the chambers demonstrated in particular that the site was a Neolithic burial-cave. Earlier Later Upper Palaeolithic material, which included flint tools, charcoal denoting a hearth, fragments of antler, and pieces of bone showing marks of cutting and crushing. The recently radiocarbon dated tang of an antler point indicates the cave was in use circa 11200BP (Before Present).
Dowel Dale, Derbyshire.
O.S Grid Reference-
SK075 676.
A rarity as far as archaeologically significant caves go as it's not gated and locked. Parking near by, unless you're prepared to ask at Dowel Hall, is however impossible. The nearest places being in Glutton Bridge a little over a mile away, from here follow the single vehicle track that leads to Dowel Dale between Parkhouse and Chrome Hills; it is an easy pleasant walk with excellent scenery to enjoy.
Partial excavations carried out in 1958 and 1959 showed the cave to have been in use in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Beaker, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods. The construction of cists in one of the chambers demonstrated in particular that the site was a Neolithic burial-cave. Earlier Later Upper Palaeolithic material, which included flint tools, charcoal denoting a hearth, fragments of antler, and pieces of bone showing marks of cutting and crushing. The recently radiocarbon dated tang of an antler point indicates the cave was in use circa 11200BP (Before Present).