Ibex Cave is a

limestone cave A solutional cave, solution cave, or karst cave is a cave usually formed in the soluble rock limestone. It is the most frequently occurring type of cave. It can also form in other rocks, including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt beds, and gypsum. ...

on the

Rock of Gibraltar The Rock of Gibraltar (from the Arabic name Jabel-al-Tariq) is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British territory of Gibraltar, near the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula, and near the entrance to the Mediterr ...

which has yielded stone artifacts of Mousterian tradition. It was discovered in 1975. It is so named as an

ibex An ibex (plural ibex, ibexes or ibices) is any of several species of wild goat (genus ''Capra''), distinguished by the male's large recurved horns, which are transversely ridged in front. Ibex are found in Eurasia, North Africa and East Africa. ...

skull was found within the cave which would have been hunted by the

Neanderthals of Gibraltar The Neanderthals in Gibraltar were among the first to be discovered by modern scientists and have been among the most well studied of their species according to a number of extinction studies which emphasize regional differences, usually claiming ...

thousands of years ago. Ibex Cave was named and excavated by the

Gibraltar Museum The Gibraltar National Museum is a national museum of the history, culture and natural history of Gibraltar located within the city centre of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Founded in 1930 by the then Governor of Gibraltar, Genera ...

in 1994. Its first formal description was in 1999.Barton, N. and Currant, A. and Fernandez-Jalvo, Y. and Finlayson, C. and Goldberg, P. and Macphail, R. and Pettitt, P. and Stringer, C. (1999).Gibraltar Neanderthals and results of recent excavations in Gorham's, Vanguard and Ibex Caves.

History

Ibex Cave was named and excavated by the

in 1994. Before this, a sand collection operation had been ongoing on the Eastside of the

. The sand from the slopes that was then beneath the water catchments was extracted and transported along a

conveyor belt A conveyor belt is the carrying medium of a belt conveyor system (often shortened to belt conveyor). A belt conveyor system is one of many types of conveyor systems. A belt conveyor system consists of two or more pulleys (sometimes referred to ...

system to the road below for industrial use. The decaying skeleton of this conveyor system was visible from

Sir Herbert Miles Road Sir Herbert Miles Road is an eastern coastal road in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It was a new road in 1917 replacing a track that previously gave access to Catalan Bay Catalan Bay ( es, La Caleta) is a bay and fishing village ...

until very recently.

Discovery and rediscovery

In 1985, when workers began removing sand from above the water catchments, they discovered the entrance to a small cave. They recovered stone artifacts and bones until ordered to stop by

George Palao George L. Palao BEM (4 October 1940, Kensington, United Kingdom - 2009, Gibraltar) was a Gibraltarian historian and potholer and illustrator. He was particularly known for his excavations and finds in many caves of Gibraltar. Early years Born ...

of the Public Works Department. Palao gathered the collected items and arranged for the cave to be sealed according to notes found years later in a vault at the Gibraltar Museum. These finds were rediscovered in a bag in 1991 by Prof.

Clive Finlayson Prof. Clive Finlayson MBE FLS (born 15 January 1955) is a Gibraltarian zoologist, paleoanthropologist and paleontologist. He is the incumbent Director of the Gibraltar Museum. Finlayson has published various works mainly based on his research ...

, Director of the Gibraltar Museum. They included

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, made mainly of red

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

and many

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

bones including the almost complete skull of an

, a wild mountain goat. In the bag was Palao's report and thus was able to establish where the finds came from. The stone artifacts were of Mousterian tradition, i.e.

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

. A museum collaborator, Julio Gafan, was aware of this find and introduced Prof. Finlayson to one of the former workers at the site who agreed to take them to the site where the artifacts had been recovered. Writing about the rediscovery, Prof. Finlayson and his wife Dr.

Geraldine Finlayson Geraldine Finlayson (born 31 October 1960) is a Gibraltarian Deputy Head of Heritage, as well as Director of the Institute for Gibraltarian Studies and Chief Laboratory Scientist of the Gibraltar Museum. She was Director of the John Mackintosh H ...

wrote: The area is divided into east and west sides by Rock, which are connected by a quarter-mile tunnel. There are some reservoirs around. The sides of the Rock have different scenes, with the eastern side warmer and better lit than the west. Sandy platform can be reached via the climb the cliff of about 700 steps, which was left over from the sand transported by workers here. Prof. Finlayson and Dr. Geraldine Finlayson mentioned It is now known that Ibex Cave would have been a

hunting Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

station for the Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago, a site where they went to hunt the ibexes. Other fauna associated with the site included the now rare lammergeyer or bearded vulture (''Gypaetus barbatus'').

References

* Barton, N. (2000).Gibraltar during the Quaternary: the southernmost part of Europe in the last two million years.

History

Discovery and rediscovery

References

See also