期刊名称：Past : The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society
出版年度：2007
卷号：55
出版社：University College London, Institute of Archaeology
摘要：Excavations were conducted at the swallet hole of Totty Pot in the Mendips, located just a couple of kilometres east of Gough抯 Cave and the village of Cheddar, in the early 1960s. The investigations were undertaken by the Wessex Caving Club and directed by Christopher Hawkes of the Wells and Mendip Museum. Both human and animal bones were recovered and a single radiocarbon determination on a humerus dates at least one of the former to the early part of the late Mesolithic, 7450-7050 cal BC. The site therefore represents one of the few 慴urial?sites for the Mesolithic period in Britain with a minimum of six individuals identified (Rick Schulting pers. comm.). A secure stratigraphic sequence within the swallet hole was not established during the excavations and as a result the association of the animal and human bones is undetermined. A second radiocarbon date on an aurochs bone from the site also falls within the early prehistoric period but is more recent than that on the human bone at 5620-5370 cal BC. This specimen was also sampled as part of a genetics research project to determine the origins of European cattle and reported in Nature in 2001 (vol. 410).
