Cave record of Britain's pioneers
The Cheddar Gorge in Somerset was one of the first sites inhabited by humans when they returned to Britain towards the end of the last Ice Age.
New radiocarbon dates on bones from Gough's Cave show people were living there some 14,700 years ago.
The results confirm the site's great antiquity and suggest human hunters re-colonised Britain at a time of rapid climate warming.
Interest in the site was stimulated by the discovery in 1903 of "Cheddar Man", the complete skeleton of a male individual dating to about 9,000 years ago (after calibration this comes to about 10,000 calendar years).
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New radiocarbon dates on bones from Gough's Cave show people were living there some 14,700 years ago.
The results confirm the site's great antiquity and suggest human hunters re-colonised Britain at a time of rapid climate warming.
Interest in the site was stimulated by the discovery in 1903 of "Cheddar Man", the complete skeleton of a male individual dating to about 9,000 years ago (after calibration this comes to about 10,000 calendar years).