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Project title

Developing the resource of museum collections of Ireland's ancient animal bones: climate change, ecosystem reconstruction, and indicators of Pleistocene human presence from past excavation archives

Primary Funding Agency

Irish Research Council

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

University College Dublin (UCD)

Lead Applicant

n/a

Project Abstract

Ireland has a substantial record of faunal remains (animal bones) from the Pleistocene and Holocene from cave sites excavated mainly in antiquarian times. We have been analysing the National Museum archives of these collections over several years, with the aim of developing models of ancient environmental and climate change, and the human use of caves in the past. As part of these studies, we have uncovered a record of human presence and activities in Ireland during the Palaeolithic. Butchery marks on reindeer bones dating to several dates in the late Pleistocene suggest a long-term interaction with reindeer, fitting models of ancient hunter-gatherer populations across northern Europe, and connecting Ireland ecologically and culturally to Europe from at least 33,000-18,000 years ago. This is one of the most important recent archaeological finds in Ireland, and opens the discussion of pre-Holocene human occupation. This project substantially advances the ongoing research effort exploring the archive of antiquarian cave bone assemblages, by funding a senior researcher who is expert in the analysis of these bones to complete analysis of animal bones from four important cave sites (Kesh, Kilgreany, Castlepook and Edenvale caves) held in the National Museum of Ireland. Supplementary studies are proposed that aim to provide temporal, spatial and stratigraphic context to these assemblages, through analysis of the documentary records, modern mapping and sediment recording to help orient and contextualise antiquarian excavations, and limited but targeted sediment studies and bone dating, DNA and stable isotope analyses. The aim is to further develop and interpret the archives, which are currently our only window into Pleistocene Ireland and the newly-discovered Palaeolithic record of human activity on this island, and to enable new modelling of climate, environmental and cultural change during the earliest occupation(s) of Ireland.

Grant Approved

�218,502.00

Research Hub

n/a

Research Theme

Ireland's Future Climate, its Impacts, and Adaptation Options

Start Date

01/09/2022

Initial Projected Completion Date

01/09/2024