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A Century After Causing Controversy, Red Cave Markings in Wales Are Classified Again as Britain's Oldest Rock Art
Key takeaways
- The painted wall in 2024, enhanced on the right by a DStretch filter Nash et al., Quaternary, 2026 In 1912, scientists surveying southern Wales discovered a cave wall covered in red parallel lines.
- Now, a modern team of researchers has backed the original hypothesis.
- We’ve got data 17,100 years before present, which makes it the oldest rock art in the British Isles.”
The painted wall in 2024, enhanced on the right by a DStretch filter Nash et al., Quaternary, 2026 In 1912, scientists surveying southern Wales discovered a cave wall covered in red parallel lines. They deemed the streaks prehistoric rock art. But in 1928, other researchers disagreed, claiming the marks were naturally occurring seepages of red oxide.
Now, a modern team of researchers has backed the original hypothesis. According to a study recently published in Quaternary, someone painted the 11 red lines on the wall of Bacon Hole some 17,000 years ago. That makes them the oldest rock art in Britain—and in northwest Europe.
“It was never considered to be rock art after 1928, and also it could never be dated, because in those days they didn’t have the scientific means that we have today,” lead author George Nash, an archaeologist associated with the University of Coimbra and the University of Liverpool, says to the Guardian’s Dalya Alberge. “We’ve used uranium-thorium dating for the pigments. We’ve got data 17,100 years before present, which makes it the oldest rock art in the British Isles.”