17/3/2008

Dwellers on Llandudno's Great Orme 13 to 14000 year ago liked funky jewellery made of teeth and bone and dish of the day could probably have included seal meat.

The results of a major research project on Kendrick's Cave, Llandudno, by Jill Cook, deputy keeper of prehistory and early Europe at the British Museum will be revealed in a talk at 7pm at Llandudno Town Hall on Tuesday 1st April.

The research has formed a picture of a unique group of fascinating objects, which suggest a specialised and distinctive way of life around the area of the Great Orme 13-14000 years ago.

The objects include works of art and jewellery made of bone and teeth, as well as the remains of the people who made them and were buried in the cave. Their bones reveal that they hunted, fished and collected food along the coast and their diet might have included seal meat.

Using the latest results produced by scientists at the British Museum, as well as Bradford and Oxford Universities, the talk will reinterpret the nineteenth century excavations by Thomas Kendrick in the light of modern knowledge, and consider whether Kendrick's Cave was a campsite or a place of special significance to the hunter gatherers of one of the most north westerly territories of late Ice Age Europe.

The talk coincides with the opening of the Sharing Treasures exhibition at Llandudno Museum in which the finds from Kendrick's cave will be reunited for the first time in a hundred years. Items are on loan from the National Museum Wales and the British Museum.

The talk is hosted jointly by the Chardon Trust (Llandudno Museum), Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Historical Society and Conwy Library, Information and Culture Service. Admission is free but donations to Llandudno Museum are welcome.