Overview
- The peer‑reviewed study published Monday in Quaternary reports uranium–thorium dating of pigment‑bearing calcite that gives an age of about 17,100 years before present and finds the red bands were applied by a finger.
- Independent measurements of cave carbonates provide a corroborating minimum age of roughly 15,700 years, and imaging plus microscopic chemistry show the pigment is iron‑oxide mixed with clay and calcite residues.
- The new analyses overturn a long‑standing 1928 ruling that the markings were natural mineral stains and vindicate the original 1912 record by William Sollas and Henri Breuil.
- National Trust Wales, which manages Bacon Hole, is preparing a formal announcement and researchers are urging the highest levels of legal protection while planning further, careful sampling and study.
- Scholars say the find adds direct evidence of Upper Paleolithic symbolic behavior on the Gower coast and raises fresh questions about ritual and seasonal use of coastal caves even though no clear occupation debris has yet been found.