On January 18 1823, an archaeological dig commences and the remains of The Red Lady of Paviland were discovered by palaeontologist and clergyman Reverend William Buckland, who removed them from the Goat's Hole cave on Gower. Buckland was the first Professor of Geology at Oxford at the time and was later to become Dean of Westminster. He mistakenly assumed the skeleton was female - as its bones were dyed red - and he identified it as being from Roman times. Perforated seashell necklaces also accompanied the body and it was largely these decorative items that led Buckland into identifying the skeleton as that of a female, probably a Roman prostitute or witch. Buckland believed that no human remains could be dated earlier than the Great Flood that is recorded in the Bible. Misguided by this preconception, his dating of the skeleton was drastically inaccurate. . The Red Lady of Paviland' represents a ceremonial burial in a shallow grave behind a mammoth's skull, presumably with the bones being buried after they had been rubbed with red ochre.
Actually, the bones are actually those of a man, aged approximately 21 years old. They are the oldest known buried remains in Britain are 33,000 years old. The findings show that ceremonial burials were taking place in Western Europe much earlier than researchers had believed.He was in good health at the time of his death and the bone protein analysis indicates that he lived on a diet that consisted of 20% fish, balanced by other foods such as horse, reindeer, roots, acorns and berries. Paviland, on the Gower Peninsular, now looks over the Bristol Channel, but 30,000 years ago the sea level would have been 250 feet lower, so the view was of a richly pastured 70-mile wide plain that was full of grazing animals.