Bone Cave Research Articles

Stable isotopes confirm the Banwell Bone Cave Mammal Assemblage Zone represents an MIS 5 fauna

Abstract The position of the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage zone (MAZ) in the mammalian biostratigraphy of the British Isles has been the focus of debate for decades. Dominated by fauna typical of cold environments it was originally linked to the marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 4 stadial (ca. 72–59 ka). Subsequently it was argued that the Banwell Bone Cave MAZ more likely relates to the temperate interstadial of MIS 5a (ca. 86–72 ka). It is envisioned that “cold fauna” such as bison and reindeer moved into Britain during stadial MIS 5b (ca. 90 ka) and were subsequently isolated by the rising sea level during MIS 5a. Here we investigate environmental conditions during the Banwell Bone Cave MAZ using bone collagen δ13C and δ15N and tooth enamel δ18O and δ13C isotope analysis. We analyse bison and reindeer from the MAZ type-site, Banwell Bone Cave. Our results show unusually high δ15N values, which we ascribe to arid conditions within a temperate environment. Palaeotemperature estimates derived from enamel δ18O indicate warm temperatures, similar to present day. These results confirm that the Banwell Bone Cave MAZ relates to a temperate interstadial and supports its correlation to MIS 5a rather than MIS 4.

New U-series dates from Stump Cross Caverns, Yorkshire, UK, and constraints on the age of the Banwell Bone Cave Mammal Assemblage Zone

Stump Cross Caverns house one of the important Pleistocene fossil bone beds of the UK. Yet, the dates of the Banwell Bone Cave Mammal Assemblage Zone (MAZ), to which these belong, have not yet been well constrained. Here we present new U-Th dates showing that Late-MIS 5 bison-reindeer-wolverine fauna was present in northern England at least as early as 91.9 ± 0.5 ka (the oldest date yet published); and that the Banwell Bone Cave fauna probably occupied the Yorkshire Dales from soon after ∼100 ka to 80 ka (late MIS 5c-early MIS 5a). This adds to the very small number of dates for this fauna, is somewhat older than the timing proposed in the literature, and suggests that the fauna arrived in NW Britain more than 5 kyr in advance of SW Britain. We also found an older bone bed dating from 175 to 172 ka, MIS 6d. This is only the second reported occurrence in the Yorkshire Dales of a fauna that pre-dates the Last Interglacial. Our results confirm that calcite deposition in this cave is precluded during interglacial peaks by local flooding, but at other times is similar to other caves of NW Europe. The oldest dates, on calcites from the uppermost levels, show dewatering by at least ∼430 ka (early MIS 11), adding to our understanding of the antiquity of the caves and the geomorphology of the region.

A reassessment of the age of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave, Maryland, (middle Pleistocene) using coupled U-series and electron spin resonance dating (ESR)

AbstractThe deposits in Cumberland Bone Cave (Allegany County, Maryland) preserved one of the most taxonomically diverse pre-radiocarbon Pleistocene faunas in the northeastern United States. The site has long been recognized as an important record of Pleistocene life in the region, but numerical age control for the fauna was never developed, and hypotheses for its age have been based upon biochronological assessments of the mammalian fauna. We used fossil teeth and preserved sediment housed in museum collections to obtain the first numerical age assessment of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave. Coupled U-series Electron Spin Resonance (US-ESR) was used to date fossil molars of the extinct peccary,Platygonussp. The age estimates of two teeth gave ages of 722 ± 64 and 790 ± 53 ka. Our results are supported by previously unpublished paleomagnetic data generated by the late John Guilday, and by plotting length-width of the first molar (m1) ofOndatra (muskrats) from Cumberland Bone Cave on the chronocline ofOndatra molar evolution in North America. Our age assessments are surprisingly close to the age estimate previously proposed by Charles Repenning, who based his age on a somewhat complicated model of speciation and morphotype evolution among arvicoline rodents.

The Irvingtonian Avifauna of Cumberland Bone Cave, Maryland.

The early and mid-Pleistocene avian communities of North America are best known from the Rocky Mountain region and peninsular Florida. In the Appalachian Mountain region, only a small number of avian bones from mid-latitude cave deposits have been attributed to this time period. Here, I enlarge this record by reporting on bird bones from Cumberland Bone Cave in western Maryland, a well-known locality for large and small Irvingtonian mammals and other vertebrates. The taxa identified encompass ground birds, waterfowl, a hawk, two eagles, a vulture, an owl, a jay, a flycatcher, a junco or sparrow, and a finch. No purely boreal elements are confirmed as part of the avian assemblage, and all of the extant species that are positively or tentatively identified in the assemblage still occur in the region today. An immature bone referred to the Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus (Bechstein)) represents an Irvingtonian breeding record for the species in Maryland. This record occurs at the northern limit of the current breeding range for the genus. Extinct species in the assemblage include the Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius (Linnaeus)), a large screech owl (Megascops guildayi (Brodkorb Mourer-Chauviré 1984)), and the large goose, Branta dickeyi Miller 1924. It can be argued that none of these represent the extinction of a phyletic lineage during the Irvingtonian. Based on the broad habitat preferences of modern counterparts of the birds in the assemblage, we can expect that Irvingtonian habitats near the site included mixed forest with mast-producing hardwoods and both early and later successional stages represented. There must have been fluvial, wetland, or lacustrine habitat suitable for waterbirds nearby, and probably also open woodland or grassy savannah areas, suitable for vulture foraging, turkey nesting, and booming by Ruffed Grouse.

A multi-proxy climate record from a northwestern Botswana stalagmite suggesting wetness late in the Little Ice Age (1810–1820 CE) and drying thereafter in response to changing migration of the tropical rain belt or ITCZ

A multi-proxy record of past climate from a stalagmite from Bone Cave in northwestern Botswana suggests relatively wet conditions late in the Little Ice Age and progressively drier conditions in the twentieth century. The proxies include surfaces of dissolution, variation in layer-specific width, changing mineralogy, varying abundance of detrital material, varying growth rate, and oxygen and carbon isotope data. They combine to suggest a period of exceptional wetness that can be assigned with greatest certainty to ~1810–1820 CE and may have been wettest in 1817. The same proxy data conversely suggest relatively dry conditions after about 1835, and increasing dryness after about 1930.Bone Cave lies in the summer rainfall zone, at the southern margin of the tropical rain belt associated with the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Previously published data from other records combine with the Bone Cave record to support wetter conditions in the 1700s and until about 1830, and drier conditions thereafter. The period of exceptional wetness in ~1810–1820 recorded in BC97-14 coincides with a decade of exceptional cold in the Northern Hemisphere, and its acme may be coincident with the Tambora eruption and its resultant “year without a summer” in Europe and North America. These results are thus compatible with movement of the austral-summer ITCZ southward (rather than an increase in rain its customary position) when the Northern Hemisphere cooled relative to the Southern Hemisphere. Conversely, they suggest that the ITCZ has not come as far south as frequently during Earth's warming in the past century.

The influence of raw material size on stone artefact assemblage formation: An example from Bone Cave, south-western Tasmania

This paper specifically examines the influence of raw material size on stone artefact assemblage formation in conjunction with two behavioural assemblage formation processes: reduction intensity and artefact transport. The aim is to establish whether raw material size can influence the way in which reduction intensity and artefact transport form a stone artefact assemblage and, should a significant influence be established, whether this has any bearing on human behavioural reconstructions. This is first investigated in an experimental setting followed by an archaeological setting using a quartzite and chert assemblage from Bone Cave in south-western Tasmania. Reduction intensity and artefact transport are respectively measured using the scar density index, flake to core ratio, non-cortical to cortical flake ratio and cortex ratio while tool blank sizes are also reconstructed. The combined experimental and archaeological analyses find that raw material size variation is capable of exerting a substantial influence on stone artefact assemblage formation. This particularly with reference to the nature of change in stone artefact assemblages: both reduction intensity and artefact transport will alter assemblage composition at faster rates when nodule sizes are smaller. This can have significant implications for intra- and inter-site reconstructions of past human behaviour.

Archaeology and the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, Assynt, Highland

Excavations in the 1920s at the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, near Inchnadamph, aroused considerable interest in the possibility of evidence for a Palaeolithic presence in north-west Scotland. Four objects found during those excavations, including the one on which the principal claim for a Palaeolithic date was based, are published here for the first time. The author contends that two are probable Viking Age/early medieval artefacts of unusual type, one is undated but is possibly also of the same period, and the fourth, while almost certainly of the Pleistocene age, is regarded as an unmodified natural object. It is argued that collectively these items serve to discount previous claims for Palaeolithic human presence. Radiocarbon dating of the human skeletal remains found, however, suggests the caves were a burial place in the Neolithic period. The paper makes extensive use of archive documentation to put the 1920s discoveries at Creag nan Uamh and their aftermath into historical context. Includes

Palaeodistribution of pygmy-possums in Tasmania

This work is a contribution towards documenting the fossil distribution of the pygmy possums Cercartetus lepidus and C. nanus (Marsupialia: Burramyidae) in Tasmania. We provide locality data and bibliographic sources for 15 Quaternary fossil sites important for these species (i.e., Beeton Rockshelter on Badger Island, Cave Bay Cave on Hunter Island, Bone Cave, Derwent River Shelter 7, Kutikina Cave, Mackintosh Cave, Main Drain, March Fly Pot, Newdegate Cave, Nunamira, Ouse River Shelter 7, Peramerpar Meethaner, Pseudocheirus Cave, Warhol, and Warreen Caves on mainland Tasmania). Dates available for these sites span the period 3960 ± 60 to 34,790 ± 510 years ago. We also draw attention to a Late Oligocene fossil locality at Geilston Bay which produced an undescribed Cercartetus-like species. The recorded palaeodistribution of pygmy-possums in Tasmania is widespread, with sites on two offshore islands, and also in the southern, south western, and western areas of mainland Tasmania.

Relost and refound: Detection of a paleontologically, historically, cinematically(?), and environmentally important solution feature in the carbonate belt of southeastern Pennsylvania

The following article describes a recent geophysical survey whose purpose was to locate a solution cavity known as the “Port Kennedy Bone Cave” beneath Valley Forge National Historical Park, in the carbonate belt of South-eastern Pennsylvania. The authors must apologize at the outset for presenting an article that leaves out such important details as the actual site location and coordinates or north arrows on the figures. This “if-we-tell-you-we-have-to-kill-you” approach is necessary because the bone cave contains one of the most important middle Pleistocene (Irvingtonian, or ∼750,000 year-old) fossil deposits in North America. It contains plants, insects, turtles, snakes, birds, and mammals—including giant tapirs, ground sloths, sabre-tooth cats, cheetahs, bears, and mammoths. Some of these fossils were new to science when the cave was discovered by quarry workers in the late 1800s, and were studied by the most famous paleontologists of that time (e.g. Edwin Drinker Cope, Henry C. Mercer, and Charles Wh...

A Mid-Upper Palaeolithic human humerus from Eel Point, South Wales, UK

We report here on a human humerus directly dated to 24,470 ± 110 BP, placing it within the Gravettian, or Mid-Upper Palaeolithic. The partial humerus is an isolated find and can be attributed (with some caution) to the Pleistocene ‘bone cave’ of Eel Point on Caldey Island, Wales (UK). The humerus is probably male, similar in robusticity to other Gravettian right humeri. The apparent absence of stone tools and presence of hyaena bone and coprolites suggest that the element may not derive from an intentional burial. After a maxilla from Kent's Cavern and the Gravettian Paviland 1, Eel Point represents the third oldest anatomically modern human known from Britain. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements do not support certain use of marine foods but highlight the need for more research on contemporary faunal remains in order to better interpret human values from this period.

Bone Cave: A Severely Disturbed Cave Site in Central Oregon

The presence of obsidian artifacts available for hydration and sourcing analysis, a high concentration of well-preserved faunal remains, a limited time span of occupation, and a wealth of obsidian research in the region, make Bone Cave an ideal example of an often ignored class of archaeological site. Although highly disturbed, analysis of the excavation results allowed us to determine that Bone Cave served as a probable pre-Mazama (prior to 6850 B.P.) rabbit processing site during the Early Holocene. The disturbed site of Bone Cave shows that field research is possible even in a region or political environment in which the excavation of intact sites is not.

U‐series dating of the Late Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Wood Quarry (Steetley), Nottinghamshire, UK

AbstractWe present the U‐series dating of bones from Wood Quarry (‘Steetley Quarry Cave’) using the diffusion–adsorption model to account for uranium uptake. The results give a weighted mean date of 66.8 ± 3.0 kyr, placing this assemblage within or just before Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 4. The fauna is thought to correlate with the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage‐zone of the Early Devensian in Britain. Our results support the idea that this assemblage‐zone immediately precedes the assemblage represented nearby at Pin Hole in Creswell Crags which is contemporary with the Mid‐Devensian and correlates with MIS 3. Our dates, and dates for the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage‐zone from Stump Cross Cavern and evidence from other sites may indicate a longevity for this fauna. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Radiocarbon Dates from the Oxford Ams System: Archaeometry Datelist 31

Radiocarbon Dates from the Oxford Ams System: <i>Archaeometry</i> Datelist 31

A formal mammalian biostratigraphy for the Late Pleistocene of Britain

A series of distinctive mammalian assemblages spanning much of the British Late Pleistocene is defined on the basis of type localities and a formal biozonation proposed. The Joint Mitnor Cave mammal assemblage-zone includes the famous “Hippopotamus fauna” of the early part of the Last Interglacial complex (Oxygen Isotope Substage 5e). This is succeeded by the Bacon Hole mammal assemblage-zone in which hippopotamus is no longer present and species like mammoth, roe deer and northern vole re-enter the British region. This assemblage-zone appears to represent the later substages of OIS 5. A faunal grouping dominated by bison and reindeer is named the Banwell Bone Cave mammal assemblage-zone and is believed to correlate closely with the Early Devensian (OIS 4). The Pin Hole mammal assemblage-zone includes the familiar mammoth-steppe faunas of the Middle Devensian (OIS 3) dominated by horse, woolly rhinoceros and mammoth. The Lateglacial Interstadial is characterized by the Gough's Cave mammal assemblage-zone in which horse, red deer and humans are well represented (part of OIS 2). No definitive evidence for human activity can be found for a period spanning the Last Interglacial complex (OIS 5) and the Early Devensian (OIS 4). Human populations return to Britain with the Pin Hole mammal assemblage-zone fauna during the Middle Devensian (OIS 3) and reappear after the Dimlington Stadial during the Late Devensian (OIS 2) but in a different faunal association.

Characterisation of cherts from sites in southwest Tasmania

AbstractThis paper reports on the characterisation, using thin section petrography and Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, of cherts recovered from Pleistocene sites (Bone Cave, Warreen, Pulawa Trounta and Nunamira) located in the interior of Southwest Tasmania. The results indicate use of one major chert source area and fit a simple distance fall‐off model. These results are congruent with palaeo‐ecological models previously developed for Southwestern Tasmania (Cosgrove 1995; Cosgrove, Allen and Marshall 1990).

Prehistoric Diet and Parasitic Infection in Tennessee: Evidence from the Analysis of Desiccated Human Paleofeces

Eight desiccated human feces recovered from Big Bone Cave (40VB103) were analyzed for dietary contents and evidence of endoparasitic infection. Radiocarbon-dated materials from the cave indicated that it was a locus of human activity 2220 ± 135 years ago. The dietary contents were primarily composed of three domesticated plant species:Iva annua, Chenopodium berlandierissp.jonesianum, andHelianthus annuus. Endoparasitic species infecting the population using the cave were:Enterobius vermicularis, Ascaris lumbricoides, Giardia intestinalis, and a species tentatively identified to the superfamily Ancylostomoidea. The evidence of endoparasitic infection preserved in the Big Bone Cave paleofecal sample is the most complete record available for Eastern North America. This information is a new contribution to understanding the relative health status and living conditions of the emergent horticultural societies of prehistoric Eastern North America.

Excavations at Bone Cave, South Central Tasmania, January - February 1989

In the last issue of Australian Archaeology, Richard Cosgrove, Steve Brown and I reported an unfinished excavation at Bone Cave, undertaken in May 1988 as part of the Southern Forests Archaeological Project (Allen et al. 1988). In January and February this year we returned to the site with a large team of students from La Trobe University, together with Darrell West and John Dickson from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre and Ian McNiven from the University of Queensland.

Prehistoric Parasitism in Tennessee: Evidence from the Analysis of Desiccated Fecal Material Collected from Big Bone Cave, Van Buren County, Tennessee

Eight samples of desiccated human feces collected from Big Bone Cave (40VB103), Van Buren County, Tennessee, were analyzed to determine the presence of ecto- and endoparasitic infection among the prehistoric population using the cave. Radiocarbon-dated torch material from the cave indicated that it was a locus of human activity 2,177 +/- 145 yr ago. Parasitic species identified were: Ascaris lumbricoides, Enterobius vermicularis, fleas of the tribe Phalacropsyllini, and protozoan cysts. The cysts were identified as Giardia using an indirect immunofluorescent antibody test. The only report of Giardia in a prehistoric context is the identification of cysts in 2 1,800-yr-old paleofecal specimens from a cave in Israel. This is the first report of Giardia from paleofeces in the New World.

The 1926-7 excavations of the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, near Inchnadamph, Sutherland

The 1926-7 excavations of the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, near Inchnadamph, Sutherland

The Archaeology of Bone Cave, Miller County, Missouri.E. Adamson Hoebel

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksThe Archaeology of Bone Cave, Miller County, Missouri. E. Adamson Hoebel George F. CarterGeorge F. Carter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 22, Number 1Mar., 1947 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/395680 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.