Location on the Great Orme Type limestone massif Archaeologists Thomas Kendrick | Region Llandudno, Wales Excavation dates 1880 | |
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Kendrick's Cave on the Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales, was the site of important archaeological finds by Thomas Kendrick in 1880. The site is a small natural cavern on the south of the Great Orme Head, a limestone massif on the seaward side of Llandudno (Ordnance Survey ref SH 78008284).
Kendrick, a lapidary, was clearing a cave in his garden to extend his workshop. In the process he found a decorated horse jaw, flint artefacts, bear teeth with holes for use as beads or pendants and human and animal bones.
An analysis of the human bones found shows that they had a diet high in seafood and the presence of the bones has been taken to indicate that the cave was a burial site rather than a camp site. A recent research project involving with the British Museum, the Field Club, Llandudno Museum and Archives, Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Historical Society, the National Museum of Wales, and Oxford and Bradford Universities has reunited the once dispersed finds from the cave.