The Bontnewydd palaeolithic site (), also known in its unmutated form as , is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

near

St Asaph St Asaph (; "church on the Elwy") is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and community (Wales), community on the River Elwy in Denbighshire, Wales. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census the community had a population ...

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, Flintshire to the east, Wrexham to the southeast, Powys to the south, and Gwynedd and Conwy to the west. Rhyl is the largest town, and Ruthi ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. It is one of only three sites in Britain to have produced fossils of ancient species of humans (together with

Boxgrove Boxgrove is a village, parish, ecclesiastical parish and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of the English county of West Sussex, about north east of the city of Chichester. The village is ...

and

Swanscombe Swanscombe /ˈswɔnzkəm/ is a town in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is 4.4 miles west of Gravesend and 4.8 miles east of Dartford. History Prehistory Bone fragments and to ...

) and the only one with fossils of a classic

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

. It is located a few yards east of the

River Elwy The River Elwy () is a river in Wales forming a tributary to the River Clwyd. Though the source of the river may be on the northern flank of Moel Seisiog, south-east of Llanrwst, the river only receives the name Elwy at the village of Llanger ...

, near the hamlet of Bontnewydd, near

Cefn Meiriadog Cefn Meiriadog (sometimes Cefnmeriadog) is a rural community (Wales), community in Denbighshire, Wales, just south-west of the city of St Asaph. The boundary of the community on three sides is the river Elwy, which here forms the county boundary ...

, Denbighshire.

Palaeolithic site

Bontnewydd was excavated from 1978 by a team from the

University of Wales The University of Wales () is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff – the university was the first universit ...

, led by Dr. Stephen Aldhouse Green. Teeth and part of a jawbone from a

boy approximately eleven years old were dated to 230,000 years ago. Seventeen teeth from at least five individuals were found. The teeth show evidence of

taurodontism Taurodontism is defined as the enlargement of pulp chambers with the furcation area being displaced toward the apex of the root of a tooth. It cannot be diagnosed clinically and requires radiographic visualization since the crown of a taurodon ...

, enlarged pulp cavities and short roots, which is characteristic of

Neanderthals Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

, and although it is not unique to them it is one of the reasons that the species was identified as Neanderthal. In Britain, the wolf ''Canis lupus'' was the only canid species present from

Marine Isotope Stage Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from Oxygen isotope ratio cycle, oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core ...

7 (243,000 years before present), with the oldest record from Pontnewydd Cave. The site is also important for its

mammoth steppe The mammoth steppe, also known as steppe-tundra, was once the Earth's most extensive biome. During glacial periods in the later Pleistocene, it stretched east-to-west, from the Iberian Peninsula in the west of Europe, then across Eurasia and thr ...

fauna, such as

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

and

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was larg ...

, dating to between around 41,000 and 28,000 years ago.Pettit and White, pp. 377-81

Citations

Sources

* * * (alt ) {{Homo neanderthalensis, state=expanded Archaeological sites in Denbighshire Stone Age sites in Wales Neanderthal sites Scheduled monuments in Denbighshire

Palaeolithic site

See also

Citations

Sources