Bones and Ochre: The Curious Afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland (review)

The so-called “Red Lady” of Paviland in Southwest Wales came to light in 1825. Soon, William Buckland, an eccentric geologist from Oxford University, declared the remains to be those of a Roman tax collector buried with some of his receipts. Bones and Ochre tells the convoluted story of the Paviland remains, recently the subject of rigorous multidisciplinary analysis. Sommer’s “biography” of Paviland is a microcosm of debates about human evolution spanning nearly two centuries. She asks, “How can the same set of bones be read consecutively as postdiluvian tax man, female witch or prostitute of Ancient British times, male Cro-Magnon hunter of the Aurignacian Paleolithic, and male shaman or hero of the Gravettian culture?” (l). Her biographical answer revolves around two major scientific personalities and the multidisciplinary research of recent decades.

Part I describes how Buckland, given to describing nature as a historical romance, tried to reconcile science and religious dogma. He first described the Paviland skeleton as that of an excise man, then changed its sex to female, the remains of a woman who dealt in witchcraft. Buckland died before the scientific acceptance of human antiquity in 1859 and sought to interpret Paviland within the context of the scientific knowledge of his day. He also passed away before the epochal Cro-Magnon discoveries of Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy in the Dordogne, which placed the study of prehistory on a new footing.

From Buckland, Sommer moves to another eccentric figure from Oxford, William Sollas, a geologist who came to archaeology and anthropology later in his career. He is best known for his Ancient Hunters and Their Modern Representatives (London, 1924), in which he compared the Cro-Magnons of southwestern France with the Eskimo. He considered Cro-Magnons the first truly modern humans and Paviland as one of them, a member of the Aurignacian culture, declaring that the bones were those of a man, not a woman.

Sommer calls the multidisciplinary study of the Paviland remains under Stephen Aldhouse-Green a happy ending. This project, which began in 1995 and saw publication in 2000, involved both re-excavation of the cave and a reanalysis of the bones and associated artifacts. Paviland was dated to at least 26,000 radiocarbon years ago, and mitochondrial dna linked the skeleton to the commonest extant lineage in Europe. Sommer evaluates the multidisciplinary research, describes the varying interpretations of the burial, and points out that most of the specialists worked alone without consulting other members of the team, calling into question the multidisciplinarity of the research to some extent. Her “biography” is a reminder that most major archaeological finds have complex histories, which have close ties to the scientific debates of the day.

Research continues; the Paviland skeleton is being reappraised. New dates place the burial at about 31,000 years ago, one of the earliest modern human interments in Europe. In the meantime, Sommer offers a timely and comprehensive assessment of Paviland that will be invaluable for future researchers.