Details of Badger Hole cave system on Pastscape
A cave with a large entrance which leads via communicating passages to a large inner chamber. The entrance is high in the eastern face of the Wookey Hole Ravine. The cave was first discovered in 1938, and excavated over a number of years by HE Balch. Its interior deposits proved to have been extensively disturbed by badgers. Further excavations occurred in 1958 (C McBurney) and 1968 (J Campbell). Finds include Palaeolithic flints, including scrapers, awls, saws and leaf points; Palaeolithic animal remains, including mammoth, woolly rhinocerous and hyena; and a quantity of Roman finds including pottery, coins, and a bronze fibula. A number of iron objects including nails may be quite recent. Human remains recovered from Badger Hole had been regarded as belonging to the Early Upper Palaeolithic. However, direct accelerator dating of the human bones have produced dates ranging from circa 9000 years bp and 1500 bp.