How old are the South Wales caves?

Paviland Cave -- burial place for the "red lady" -- but how old is the cave?

This is an interesting paper, aimed largely at the book by Prof Peter Kokelaar in which he argues that some of the caves on Gower are very old indeed.  Faulkner takes the view that the caves are very recent, formed very largely during the "wastage"phases of the Anglian and Devensian glaciations.  So how convincing are his arguments?

I have to say that I am not entirely convinced.  One problem is that Faulkner sticks to a "two glaciation" scenario, referring to the Anglian and Late Devensian glaciations and ignoring the Wolstonian (MIS-6 to MIS-10), let alone considering the possibility of a cold "event" in the Early or Middle parts of the Devensian.  I don't blame Faulkner for this, since this more complex chronology of glacial events has come into the frame very recently.......

However, I do not find the emphasis on ice dammed lakes all that convincing, since it does not seem to be backed up with much hard evidence in the field.  And it is rather fanciful to refer to ancient cave systems -- originating maybe several millions of years ago -- as having been eroded away without trace by the gradual lowering of the land surface.  The term "caves in the sky" is used......

On balance, I am rather persuaded by the view that the cave systems are very old and continuously evolving in response to sub-surface water table oscillations and climatic changes.  Evidence from Pontnewydd Cave and Dan-yr-Ogof suggests a great age for parts of the cave systems, and it is widely assumed that the cave and tunnel networks of the Mendips (for example) date back to a time of subterranean limestone dissolution more than a million years ago.  Uranium series dating of around 600,000 years, for example (close to the limit for the technique), indicates that the caves in which they were found were substantially  older.  Occupation by humans during the Palaeolithic seems to confirm that.

While some of the narrow tubes or tunnels mightc well be of "modern" origin, it seems more reasonable to assume that the big open caves are very much older, with complex histories. Anyway, an interesting debate........

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Quaternary deglacial speleogenesis on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, UK 

Trevor Faulkner

Conference Paper · August 2025
19th International Congress of Speleology, 20-27 July 2025
At: Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Volume: 2, pp202-207

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394570850_Quaternary_deglacial_speleogenesis_on_the_Gower_Peninsula_South_Wales_UK

Abstract

Renewed interest in the caves of the Gower Peninsula of southern Wales was sparked by the recent re-opening of Llethryd Swallet, the dis-covery of several other significant caves, and a new book. The latter proposes that the local water supplies are derived from precipitation falling on Gower, rather than from the northern limb of limestone in the South Wales Coalfield Syncline. However, claims are made that some of the existing caves are older than ten million years. This paper offers a simpler hypothesis, from considerations of cave passage sizes, morphologies and lacustrine sediments and of surface deposits at the southern coast. The caves remaining on Gower were probably initially developed during the deglaciations of the Anglian and/or Devensian icesheets. In particular, the Llethryd Swallet−Tooth Cave system was likely initiated by phreatic dissolution during the Anglian deglaciation, when an annular ice-dammed lake surrounded Cefn Bryn and perhaps extended eastwards beyond Hunts Bay, before collapsing at a jökulhlaup. Further development by vadose entrenchment, plus phreatic dissolution at lower levels, occurred during the subsequent interglacials, with renewed phreatic enlargement by similar processes during the Devensian deglaciation.