Wookey Hole Caves to 1874 by William Boyd Dawkins, who moved to Somerset to study classics with the vicar of Wookey. On hearing of the discovery of bones by local workmen he led excavations in the area of the hyena den. His work led to the discovery of the first evidence for the use by Palaeolithic man in the Caves of the Mendip Hills. Middle Paleolithic tools have been found in association with butchered bones with a radiocarbon age of around 41,000 years. Herbert E. Balch continued the work from 1904 to 1914, when he led excavations of the entrance passage (1904–1915), Witch's
Wookey Hole Caves of , setting a new British Isles depth record for cave diving. This record was broken in 2008 by Polish explorer Artur Kozłowski on a dive in Pollatoomary in Ireland. During 1996–1997 water samples were collected at various points throughout the caves and showed different chemical compositions. Results showed that the location of the "Unknown Junction", from where water flows to the static sump in the 22nd chamber by a different route from the majority of the River Axe, is upstream of the sump in the 25th. There are old legends of a "witch of Wookey Hole", which are still