Cave S or Sewell's Cave is a

limestone cave A solutional cave, solution cave, or karst cave is a cave usually formed in a soluble rock like limestone (Calcium carbonate, with chemical formula ''CaCO3''). It is the most frequently occurring type of cave. It can also form in other rocks, inc ...

in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. It is located on the eastern side of the

Rock of Gibraltar The Rock of Gibraltar (from the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq , meaning "Mountain of Tariq ibn Ziyad, Tariq") is a monolithic limestone mountain high dominating the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated near the end of a nar ...

, near Holy Boy's Cave. Prehistoric human remains were found in the cave in 1910, and the cave is listed by the Government of Gibraltar as a Palaeolithic site.

Description

Captain Sewell discovered what is now known as Cave S or Sewell's Cave. Sewell also gave his name to Sewell's Fig Tree Caves which are now known as Goat's Hair Twin Caves.Genista Caves
Underground-Gibraltar.com, accessed 8 January 2013 Sewell in time became a Lieutenant Colonel. Sir

Charles Warren Sir Charles Warren (7 February 1840 – 21 January 1927) was a British Army officer of the Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of the Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of the Temple Mount. Much of his military ...

carried out a survey of Gibraltar in 1864 which recorded the cave as being above sea level and below the Great Gibraltar Sand Dune that was once used to capture rainwater which served as Gibraltar's main water supply. The cave is about from the north end of the Rock and opens on the east face of the Rock just above Holy Boy's Cave. The cave provides evidence of marine life indicating that despite its current altitude it was once a

sea cave A sea cave, is also known as a littoral cave, a type of cave formed primarily by the wave action of the sea. The primary process involved is erosion. Sea caves are found throughout the world, actively forming along present coastlines and as re ...

. This is not the only evidence of rising and falling sea levels in Gibraltar which have historically varied greatly.

Wynfrid Duckworth Wynfrid Lawrence Henry Duckworth (5 June 1870 – 14 February 1956) was a British anatomist, and former Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. The Duckworth Laboratory (Department of Biological Anthropology) at Cambridge University is named after ...

described the cave's floor as falling in height towards the entrance and it was covered in a soil that had the consistency of snuff in 1910. Despite not finding any

bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

s he thought that the snuff-like material was vegetable matter and bat

guano Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a le ...

. Various human artifacts such as pottery, stone implements and other stone objects, a shell armlet, perforated cyprcea, charcoal, burnt bone and broken shellfish and a wide variety of bird remains and mammalian fauna have been found in the cave. The human bones were thought to come from one male skull-less skeleton which appeared to have notably thick bones.

Today

In 2018 this cave was listed in the Heritage and Antiquities Act by the Government of Gibraltar noting that it was a Palaeolithic site.

References

*This article uses freely licensed text generously shared by https://underground-gibraltar.com {{Caves of Gibraltar Caves of Gibraltar Paleolithic sites