La Cotte de St Brelade

La Cotte de St Brelade is an archaeological site preserving a rich record of Middle Palaeolithic activity and Ice Age faunal remains. It is located in the parish of Saint Brélade, Jersey on the south west corner of the island. The place-name element Cotte means "cave" in Jèrriais, though the site may once have been known as La Grotte à la Fée (The Cave of the Fairies). The site was discovered in 1881 and has been investigated as part of several phases of excavation between 1910 and the present day. It is one of the richest Middle Palaeolithic sites in Europe and represents the most extensive sequence of Middle to Late Pleistocene Palaeolithic activity in north-west Europe. It is important for preserving a long history of repeated use of the site as a home base, two enigmatic Neanderthal bone structures and Pleistocene human fossils, which are extremely rare in this region. It occupies a granite headland containing two deep ravines which are part of collapsed sea cave system. It originally preserved over 40m of deposits preserving as many as 13 separate episodes of occupation by Neanderthal groups. These deposits may extend as far back as 250,000 years ago and also preserve Middle Palaeolithic archaeology younger than 48,000 years ago. This time span includes two previous global warm stages (inter-glacials) as well as two long cold stages; consequently the site provides a rec

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).