Picken's Hole

Picken's Hole is a small cave on the southern side of Crook Peak in the Mendip Hills in the English county of Somerset. It has been designated as a scheduled monument. It has sometimes been confused with a nearby cave called Scragg's Hole, including by the Somerset Historic Environment Record.[1]

The cave is 8 metres (26 ft) below the plateau and 27 metres (89 ft) above the valley floor.[2] It is named after M. J. Picken who found teeth in earth thrown out of their sets in the area by badgers.[3]

A number of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts, and two Neolithic teeth dated to about 4,800 years bp, were recovered from the cave.[1][4][5] Faunal deposits of spotted hyena, lion, Arctic fox, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, suslik and northern vole (Microtus oeconomus) from approximately 35,000 BP have also been recovered.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b Historic England. "Picken's Hole (1010715)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  2. ^ "Picken's Hole (Scragg's Hole), near White Rock, Compton Bishop". Somerset Historic Environment Record. South West Heritage Trust. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  3. ^ Tratman, E.K. (1964). "Picken's Hole, Crook Peak, Somerset: A Pleistocene Site" (PDF). Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society. 10 (2): 112–115.
  4. ^ Pettitt, Paul; White, Mark (2012). The British Palaeolithic: Human Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 364–65. ISBN 978-0-415-67455-3.
  5. ^ Smith, David Ingle (1975). Limestone and Caves of the Mendip Hills. David & Charles. pp. 360–361. ISBN 978-0-7153-6572-4.
  6. ^ "Crook Peak to Shute Shelve Hill SSSI citation sheet" (PDF). English Nature. Retrieved 26 April 2015.

51°17′28″N 2°51′59″W / 51.2910°N 2.8664°W / 51.2910; -2.8664

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