Totty Pot, Cheddar, Somerset: The faunal remains (UBSS Proceedings v.25(1))

Abstract: Excavations conducted in the 1960s at Totty Pot, a cave on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, recovered both human and animal bones. A secure stratigraphic sequence within the cave was not established during the excavations and as a result the association of the animal and human bones is undetermined. A minimum of six human individuals were identified and a programme of AMS dating (Schulting et al. this volume) has confirmed the presence of one previously identified Mesolithic individual and dated the other five to the Middle and late Neolithic. A radiocarbon date on an aurochs bone from the site also returned a Mesolithic date. The range of fauna represented in the 1960s assemblage includes aurochs, domestic cattle, red deer, roe deer, horse, wild and domestic pig, sheep/goat, fox, cat, dog, badger, hare and rabbit along with bones of small mammals, amphibians and birds. The range of vertebrates is of a Holocene rather that Pleistocene aspect and this corresponds with the radiocarbon dates and artefactual record. The range of species represented, however, indicates that it is a mixed assemblage with a potentially long chronology.