Our Research

The richness of the cave archaeology housed at Torquay Museum has always drawn researchers to the collections.

Sir Arthur Keith wrote early reports on the human remains in the 1930s, while in the 1970s John Campbell studied the tools of the upper palaeolithic in some depth.

More recent researchers have included; Claude N. Warren, University of Nevada, whose book ‘William Pengelly’s Techniques of Archaeological Excavation’ is available from the Museum Shop, Rodger Jacobi, Jill Cook and Adrian Lister, from the British Museum, Alison Roberts from the Ashmolean, Rick Shulting from Queens University, Belfast, Noreen Tuross from the Smithsonian, Paul Petit from the University of Oxford, and Paul Bahn, from the University of Hull.

The collection continues to offer research opportunities for undergraduates and research students. In recent years students have worked on the curation of the collection, improving documentation and identifications and creating an image database.

We are happy to support a broad range of personal research projects, from scientists, artists and general interest researchers and we encourage publication and dissemination of knowledge gained from the collections