A Late Glacial Interstadial mammal fauna from Gough’s Cave, Somerset, England

It is well known that major climatic shifts have taken place throughout human history and that they elicited numerous, rapid and sometimes irreversible environmental responses which profoundly influenced the organisms living in those environments. The Late Glacial period of 14,000-10,000 years ago is a case of special significance, for which the evidence survives in generally good condition. It is a period of pronounced climatic upheaval and instability, being distinguished by a series of short-lived warming and cooling episodes, marking the end of the last Ice Age and the transition to the present Postglacial epoch. Although the Late Glacial in north-west Europe has been widely studied by independent specialists in the different fields of the natural sciences and archaeology, rather less attention has been given to integrating these abundant and diverse lines of evidence under a common unifying theme. This volume of papers therefore seeks to redress the balance by combining the many varied specialist interests in the Late Pleistocene while, at the same time, focusing specifically on the relationship betwee