Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn Caves are two

Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

s, in

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...

, Wales, which are also designated a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

(SSSI). The site has two caves, with entrances close to each other high on a valley side, above the

Vale of Clwyd The Vale of Clwyd ( cy, Dyffryn Clwyd) is a tract of low-lying ground in the county of Denbighshire in north-east Wales. The Vale extends south-southwestwards from the coast of the Irish Sea for some 20 miles (about 30 km) forming a triangl ...

.. Cadw SAM: FL070 They were first excavated in 1883–5. Human tools have been found on the site dating back to around 36,000 BC, and a

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

bone has been dated back to 16,000 BC. These very early discoveries were significant in providing one of the first direct associations between

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s of

paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

people and the bones of extinct pre-iceage animals such as mammoth and

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...

.naturalresources.wales SSSI citation for Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn Caves
first designated, 1963. In 1963 it was designated as an SSSI for the palaeontological interest described above and for its species interest as a winter roost of lesser horseshoe bat.

Notes

Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Clwyd Tremeirchion Water wells in Wales Scheduled monuments in Denbighshire {{UK-SSSI-stub

See also

Notes