Elbolton Cave: New Chronological Insights

Abstract

For the first project in its “Dates in Drawers” programme, the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society collaborated with the Craven Museum to obtain a radiocarbon date for one of the three crouched burials recovered from Elbolton Cave in the nineteenth century. The Early Neolithic date range that was obtained finds corroboration in the conclusions drawn from ongoing aDNA work on human remains from the cave, whilst a review of the pottery assemblage has found no unequivocal Early Neolithic material that might be associated with the burials. Although the archive from this excavation was lost long ago, the recent and ongoing research demonstrates that the finds from the cave are still able to make a significant contribution to the wider understanding of the chronology of prehistoric cave use in the Yorkshire Dales.

Keywords:

• Cave Archaeology
• Yorkshire Dales
• Neolithic
• Bronze Age
• radiocarbon dating
• Ancient DNA
• pottery

Acknowledgements

The “Dates in Drawers” project was conceived by David Brear and is funded by the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society. Research towards the selection of suitable radiocarbon dating samples was carried out by David Brear and Rachel Terry (then Museum & Collections Officer at the Craven Museum), in liaison with Ian Roberts. Jenny Hill (the present Museum & Collections Officer) oversaw the submission of the samples to the SUERC Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Glasgow University, and is grateful to the advice on sample viability and measurements provided by Philip Naysmith and his colleagues there. The authors are grateful to Roger Martlew for the production of the location map (Figure 1), and to David Brear for his permission to use the photograph of the skulls (Figure 4).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Roberts

Ian Roberts is a freelance archaeological consultant and an honorary officer of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society.

Tom Booth

Dr Tom Booth is a Senior Research Scientist in the Pontus Skoglund Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute in London.

Debbie Hallam

Debbie Hallam is a doctoral researcher at the University of Bradford, studying for a PhD on the Neolithic of the Yorkshire Dales.