125 years of exploration and research at Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK)

Our understanding of the recolonization of northwest Europe in the period leading up to the Lateglacial Interstadial relies heavily on discoveries from Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK). Gough's Cave is the richest Late Upper Palaeolithic site in the British Isles, yielding an exceptional array of human remains, stone and organic artefacts, and butchered faunal remains. A particularly intriguing aspect of the human remains is the evidence of butchery, including intensive removal of soft tissue, fracturing of long bones to extract marrow, and chewing and consumption of spongy bone. Additionally, human skulls were modified into skull cups, and a radius shaft was engraved, suggesting cannibalism was ritualistic in nature. Following this brief but intense Late Upper Palaeolithic activity, the site appears to have been largely abandoned by later prehistoric peoples, making the discovery of an almost complete skeleton of a Mesolithic man puzzling. Although it remains unclear whether he was intentionally buried or if he died there, ancient DNA (aDNA) shows that he had a Western European hunter‐gatherer origin, distinct from both earlier Magdalenian individuals found at the site and later Neolithic colonists. This article presents a review of the history of exploration and research conducted at Gough's Cave over the past 125 years.