The bird remains from the West Runton Freshwater Bed, Norfolk, England

Abstract

The bird remains from the West Runton Freshwater Bed in Norfolk, England are described and identified taxonomically. Their significance to the palaeoenvironment of the deposits is discussed. The deposit is dominated by waterfowl such as ducks, geese, swans, a moorhen, a great cormorant, undetermined waders and a crane. Other birds include a thrush, starlings and small corvids. Among the large number of anatine remains there is a tarsometatarsus formerly identified as a distinct form of eider Somateria gravipes but which is now considered to belong to a diving duck but not in the eider genus Somateria. The taphonomic origins of the assemblage are discussed, as is the relationship of the West Runton fauna to those of other Cromerian Complex sites in Britain and Europe. The relatively early Pleistocene date for the assemblage prompts a discussion of the age of modern bird species as molecular biologists have recently questioned whether modern bird species have their origins in the Pleistocene or the Neogene.