Large solution caves in Silurian limestone are known throughout North Greenland with the earliest documented observations dating to the 1950s. In 1958, one large cave situated in Wulff Land was photographed during aerial reconnaissance. The image was sent to the University of Bristol and then eventually to members of the University of Bristol Spelæological Society (UBSS) where it set off a chain of events over decades that included many UBSS members, unimaginable research efforts, logistics planning and crucially, fundraising. This article presents the narrative of UBSS attempts to reach, enter and explore ’the big cave in Wulff Land‘, now known as ‘WUL-8’, which was finally achieved by a small team on 22nd July, 2023. Exploratory methods, observations, and the interdisciplinary research that was conducted during the 2023 expedition is presented.

A cave on the northern side of the Black Rock in the Avon Gorge, Bristol, has been identified as the cave painted by J.M.W. Turner and visited by Robert Southey in the late 18th century. The cave was later (1805) used as a hideout for a gang of local thieves, at which point it was known as St John’s Hole.

King Arthur’s Cave has been the focus of archaeological attention since 1870, when the Reverend Symonds excavated much of the [eastern] main chamber to the bedrock. An assemblage of early and later prehistoric flint tools, along with an array of faunal remains was retrieved. The western chamber was investigated by Taylor (1926-27) where the famous mammoth layer (comprising a stratigraphic sequence that included several hearth layers) was recorded. Again, the chamber was excavated to the bedrock. Much of the deposit that came from this excavation was dumped outside the entrance and survives today as a compacted spoil heap, which was investigated by Professor Nick Barton in 1993. Despite this antiquarian and archaeological activity, the various passages running northwards of the main eastern chamber have never been fully investigated. In 2021, a member of the First Art team (GHN), along with James Nash, discovered two haematite spreads on the wall of the western passage in an area aptly named the Sanctuary. This short paper discusses the discovery and verification processes that claims these two marks were applied to the Sanctuary wall by human agency and, second, both marks are probably of a later prehistoric date.

Coins, alongside artefacts such as jewellery, figurines, models, tools and weapons, figure prominently in ritual sites assemblages. More often than not, coins from such sites have been studied and published as if they had been found in secular contexts. The coins are treated as statistics, which reveal the chronology of activity on the site or the pattern of coins in local circulation. Very little, if indeed any, attention has been given to the role of coins in respect to their function as votive offerings or as gifts to the gods to pay for favours expected or received. This paper contextualises four coins recovered from the UBSS excavations at Brean down, building upon recent theoretical advances to highlight the plethora of alternative meanings, biographies, and characteristics of coinage deposited at sanctuaries.

This paper brings together all corrections and additions to the cave descriptions found in Caves of Mid-West Ireland (Mullan, 2019) and Caves of southern Ireland (Mullan, 2022) that have been noted since the publication of the update by Bunce et al. (2023).