The battle for the Red Lady of Paviland

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A Welsh politician and Oxford University are at war over 33,000 year old human remains.​

Byron Davies, the AM (Assembly Member) for South Wales in the National Assembly for Wales (Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru), has asked the university to return the remains of the Red Lady of Paviland, which received the oldest ceremonial burial in Europe.​


The Red Lady of Paviland was discovered in a coastal cave - Goat's Hole Cave - by the eccentric Reverend William Buckland on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales in 1823. ​


The skeleton got its name due to the fact that its bones were stained red with ochre.​


However, Buckland got the skeleton's sex wrong, and the "Red Lady" is actually a man.​


Oxford University said the skeleton is one of the iconic relics of the British Palaeolithic, and a cast of the skeleton is on permanent display, along with related artefacts, at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.​


Mr Davies believes the skeleton ‘belongs to Gower’ and said: ‘It would be good to have it back where it belongs. It adds to the bigger picture of bringing people to the city and to the Gower.’​


‘I understand the University of Oxford is not in favour of releasing it, so there would have to be some negotiation.’​



Battle for the Red Lady of Paviland: Welsh politician asks Oxford University to return 30,000-year-old skeleton to its homeland​


The Red Lady of Paviland is actually the skeleton of a man and got its name as it was dyed in red ochre, giving its bones the unusual colour

It is the oldest ceremonial burial of a human discovered in Western Europe

Byron Davies, the Assembly Member for South Wales, has asked Oxford University to return the remains of the man who was buried in Gower

By Sarah Griffiths
25 November 2013
Daily Mail​




A Welsh politician has picked a fight with Oxford University by asking for the return of one of Wales' oldest treasures.

The university is currently the custodian of a 33,000-year-old skeleton that received the oldest ceremonial burial in Western Europe.

But Byron Davies, the Assembly Member for South Wales, has asked the university to return the remains of the person known as the Red Lady of Paviland, who was buried in Gower, Wales.​
The 'Red Lady of Paviland' was discovered in a limestone cave in Gower in 1823 by a geology professor at the Oxford University, where it is kept. Here, Museum Assistant Lisa Roberts is pictured with the remains when they were on show at the National Museum and Galleries of Wales in Cardiff​


The skeleton, which is actually that of a man, got its name as it was dyed in red ochre, giving its bones the unusual colour.

It was discovered in a limestone cave in Gower in 1823 by a geology professor at the university, which is why the skeleton has been under lock and key in Oxford ever since.

It is still the oldest ceremonial burial of a human discovered in Western Europe.

Oxford University said the skeleton is one of the iconic relics of the British Palaeolithic, and a cast of the skeleton is on permanent display, along with related artefacts, at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.​
The bones were thought to be a woman's because of jewellery found nearby and were wrongly dated to Roman times by the professor when they were found (reconstruction of Paviland burial pictured)​



The Red "Lady" of Paviland was discovered by the Reverend William Buckland, an Oxford University geologist, in a coastal cave in South Wales in 1823. The eccentric Buckland was known for his fondness for eating all sorts of flora and fauna, including bluebottles

The bones were thought to be a woman's because of jewellery found nearby and were wrongly dated to Roman times by the professor when they were found.

Mr Davies believes the skeleton ‘belongs to Gower’ and said: ‘It would be good to have it back where it belongs. It adds to the bigger picture of bringing people to the city and to the Gower.’

‘I understand the University of Oxford is not in favour of releasing it, so there would have to be some negotiation.’​
The skeleton was found during at Goat's Hole Cave - one of the limestone caves between Port Eynon and Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, south Wales​


Mr Davies believes the skeleton should be on display.

‘But the university has it at the moment and it is not on display with them, which I think is wrong,’ he said.​
The skeleton got its name as it was dyed in red ochre, giving its bones the unusual colour​


He is ‘serious’ about raising funds to ensure the remains could be kept safe in Swansea, close to where they found and the Red Lady of Peviland was laid to rest.

Mr Davies said: ‘I have yet to take the next step which would be to make some sort of contact with the university, to talk to them nicely about it and try to be reasonable.

‘They did lend the original bones to the Museum of Wales in, I think, 2009,’ he added.

The politician said Swansea Museum if keen to look after the Red Lady, but noted that the outcome is ‘up to the university’.

‘I have a fairly persuasive tongue in me. I hope I've a chance,’ he said.

This week, UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who was brought up in Bridgend, spoke with Mr Davies about getting the bones back.

‘When she came down she was quite fascinated by the story and agreed it should be on display in Swansea,’ Mr Davies said.

However, a spokesman from Oxford University said the skeleton is ‘held securely in a collections room inside the museum and is available for researchers and guided tours’.’

‘The question of whether the “Red Lady” should be repatriated to a permanent home in Wales is not currently under consideration," he said.

A cast is on display in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and in 2014 the bones will go on display at London's Natural History Museum.​


WHO WAS THE RED LADY OF PAVILAND?​


The skeleton was found during at Goat's Hole Cave; one of the limestone caves between Port Eynon and Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, south Wales.

When Reverend William Buckland first discovered the skeleton in 1823, he misjudged both its age and its sex.

As a creationist, he believed no human remains could have been older than the Biblical Great Flood and wildly underestimated the skeleton's true age, believing the remains to date back to the Roman era.

Reverend Buckland believed the skeleton was female in large part because it was discovered with decorative items, including perforated seashell necklaces and jewellery thought to be of elephant ivory but now known to be carved from the tusk of a mammoth.

These decorative items combined with the skeleton's red dye caused Buckland to mistakenly speculate that the remains belonged to a Roman prostitute or witch.

However, radiocarbon dating has revealed the Red 'Lady' Of Paviland was a young man who was probably under 21 years of age and scholars think he may have been a tribal chieftain.

Bone protein analysis indicates that the 'lady' lived on a diet that consisted of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent fish, which, together with the distance from the sea (as the cave was located 70 miles inland some 33,000 years ago,) suggests that the people may have been semi-nomadic, or that the tribe transported the body from a coastal region for burial. ​



HOW OLD IS THE RED LADY OF PAVILAND?​


In the mid 19th Century, researchers discovered the skeleton dated from a Palaeolithic age.

Several attempts have been made at radiocarbon dating the ‘Red Lady’ and associated artefacts.

Most recent suggests that it is, by a significant margin, the oldest of a group of ‘rich’, Mid-Upper Palaeolithic burials in Western Europe, dating to between 34,050 and 33,260 years old.

Although widely known as the ‘Red Lady’, the bones are actually those of a young adult male. ​












 
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