Welsh Journals

Recent Work at Bacon Hole by A. P. GRIFFITHS 1 his ACCOUNT contains a brief description and tentative interpretation of Ice Age deposits and associated relics outside Bacon Hole Cave, Pennard (N.G.R. 560 868). About one million years ago the Arctic ice cap expanded, vast ice sheets moved southwards and new glaciers flowed from the mountains of Wales, grinding the landscape into its present form. The severe conditions were not unbroken, and major, though temporary, retreats of the ice were followed by interglacial periods when the climate was warmer and the sea level higher than that of the present day. In these periods local fauna included hippopotamus, elephant and lion, but renewal of glaciation brought a return to cold forest and tundra conditions with a fauna of mammoth, reindeer and woolly rhinoceros. Wandering tribes of hunters ("Palaeolithic Man") made their first brief appearances at this time, during the minor periods of climatic improvement (known as inteistadials) which occurred within the last main cold period. In the walls of the eastern half of the cove leading to Bacon Hole may