Red Lady of Paviland

The Red Lady of Paviland is a fairly complete Upper Paleolithic-era human male skeleton dyed in red ochre. Discovered in 1823, at 33,000 years old it is one of the oldest ceremonial burials of a modern human discovered anywhere in Western Europe. The bones were discovered between 18 and 25 January 1823, by Rev. William Buckland during an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave, one of the limestone caves between Port Eynon and Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, south Wales.

Buckland believed the remains to be those of a female, dating to Roman Britain. However, later analysis of the remains showed them to have been of a young male, and the most recent re-calibrated radiocarbon dating in 2009 indicated that the skeleton can be dated to around 33,000 years before present (BP).

Goat's Hole has evidence of occupation during a variety of periods, including the Mousterian, the early Gravettian and Creswellian but is predominately Aurignacian.

In 1822 Daniel Davies and the Rev John Davies, respectively surgeon and curate at Port Eynon on the south coast of Gower, explored the cave and found animal bones, including the tusk of a mammoth. The Talbot family of Penrice Castle was informed and Mary Theresa Talbot, then the oldest unmarried daughter, joined an expedition to the site and found "bones of elephants" on 27 December 1822.

William Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford University and a correspondent of that well-connected family, was contacted. He arrived on 18 January 1823 and spent a week at Goat's Hole, during which his famous discovery took place.

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