Kirkdale Cave
Encyclopedia
Kirkdale Cave is a cave located in Kirkdale
near Kirkbymoorside
in the Vale of Pickering
, North Yorkshire
, England
. The cave was discovered by workmen in 1821, and was found to contain fossilized bones of a variety of mammals not currently found in Great Britain, including hippopotamus
, the farthest north any such remains have ever been found, elephant
, and the remains of numerous cave hyena
s. William Buckland
analyzed the cave and its contents in 1822. He determined that the bones were from the remains of animals brought into the cave by hyenas who had been using it for a den, and not a result of the biblical flood floating animal remains in from distant lands as had first been thought. His reconstruction of an ancient eco-system from detailed analysis of fossil evidence was admired at the time, and considered to be an example of how geohistorical research should be done.
The fossil bones found in the cave included elephant
s, hippopotamus
es, rhinoceros
es, hyena
s, bison
, giant deer
, smaller mammals and birds. This is the northernmost site in the world where hippopotamus remains have been found. It also included a considerable amount of fossilized hyena feces. The fossiized remains were embedded in a silty layer sandwiched between layers of stalagmite
.
the curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
; he identified some of the bones as the remains of hyenas larger than any of the modern species. At the same time William Buckland
was told about the cave and shown some of the fossils by a colleague at Oxford.
Buckland began his investigation believing that the fossils in the cave were diluvial, that is that they had been deposited there by a deluge that had washed them from far away, possibly the Biblical flood. However, upon further investigation he realized that the cave had never been open to the surface through its roof, and that the only entrance that had ever been open to the outside world was too small for the carcasses of animals as large as elephants or hippos to have floated in. He began to suspect that the animals had lived in the local area, and that the hyenas had used the cave as a den and brought in remains of the various animals they fed on. This hypothesis was supported by the fact that many of the bones showed signs of having been gnawed prior to fossilization, and by the presence of objects Buckland suspected to be fossilized hyena dung. Further analysis, including comparison with the dung of modern spotted hyena
s living in menagerie
s, confirmed the identification of the fossilized dung.
He published his analysis in an 1822 paper he read to the Royal Society
. A few days before reading the formal paper he gave the following colorful account at a dinner held by the Geological Society
:
He developed these ideas further in his 1823 book Reliquiae Diluvianae; or, Observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, and on other geological phenomena, attesting the action of an universal deluge, challenging the belief that the bones were brought to the cave by Noah's flood and providing detailed evidence that instead hyenas had used the cave as a den into which they brought the bones of their prey.
and it is said that "the scientific interest aroused founded the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
". While criticized by some, William Buckland
's analysis of Kirkland Cave and other bone caves was widely seen as a model for how careful analysis could be used to reconstruct the Earth's past, and the Royal Society awarded William Buckland the Copley Medal
in 1822 for his Kirkdale paper. At the presentation the society's president, Humphry Davy
, said:
and a Geological Conservation Review
site.
The Saxon
St Gregory's Minster
with its unusual sundial
is nearby.
Kirkdale, North Yorkshire
Kirkdale is a valley in North Yorkshire, England, which along with Sleightholmedale makes up the larger Bransdale and carries the Hodge Beck from its moorland source near Cockayne to the River Dove and onto the River Rye in the Vale of Pickering....
near Kirkbymoorside
Kirkbymoorside
Kirkbymoorside is a small market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England which lies approximately 25 miles north of York midway between Pickering and Helmsley, and has a population of approximately 3,000.-History:...
in the Vale of Pickering
Vale of Pickering
The Vale of Pickering is a low-lying flat area of land in North Yorkshire, England. It is drained by the River Derwent. The landscape is rural with scattered villages and small market towns. It has been inhabited continuously from the Mesolithic period...
, North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The cave was discovered by workmen in 1821, and was found to contain fossilized bones of a variety of mammals not currently found in Great Britain, including hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
, the farthest north any such remains have ever been found, elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
, and the remains of numerous cave hyena
Cave Hyena
The Cave Hyena is an extinct subspecies of spotted hyena native to Eurasia, ranging from Northern China to Spain and into the British Isles...
s. William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
analyzed the cave and its contents in 1822. He determined that the bones were from the remains of animals brought into the cave by hyenas who had been using it for a den, and not a result of the biblical flood floating animal remains in from distant lands as had first been thought. His reconstruction of an ancient eco-system from detailed analysis of fossil evidence was admired at the time, and considered to be an example of how geohistorical research should be done.
Contents of the cave
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s, hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
es, rhinoceros
Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
es, hyena
Hyena
Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...
s, bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
, giant deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
, smaller mammals and birds. This is the northernmost site in the world where hippopotamus remains have been found. It also included a considerable amount of fossilized hyena feces. The fossiized remains were embedded in a silty layer sandwiched between layers of stalagmite
Stalagmite
A stalagmite is a type of speleothem that rises from the floor of a limestone cave due to the dripping of mineralized solutions and the deposition of calcium carbonate. This stalagmite formation occurs only under certain pH conditions within the underground cavern. The corresponding formation on...
.
Discovery and analysis
The entrance to the cave was found by limestone quarry workers in the summer of 1821. The quarry workers assumed that the abundant bones buried in the cave floor were the remains of cattle that had been dumped in the cave after dying from some past epidemic. They used some of the bones to fill potholes in a nearby road, where an amateur naturalist noticed them and realized that they were not the remains of livestock. This attracted the attention of numerous fossil collectors. Some of the fossils were sent to William CliftWilliam Clift
William Clift, , British naturalist, born at Burcombe, about half a mile from the town of Bodmin in Cornwall, on 14 Feb. 1775, was the youngest of the seven children of Robert Clift, who died a few years later, leaving his wife and family in the depths of poverty.-Education:The boy was sent to...
the curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...
; he identified some of the bones as the remains of hyenas larger than any of the modern species. At the same time William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
was told about the cave and shown some of the fossils by a colleague at Oxford.
Buckland began his investigation believing that the fossils in the cave were diluvial, that is that they had been deposited there by a deluge that had washed them from far away, possibly the Biblical flood. However, upon further investigation he realized that the cave had never been open to the surface through its roof, and that the only entrance that had ever been open to the outside world was too small for the carcasses of animals as large as elephants or hippos to have floated in. He began to suspect that the animals had lived in the local area, and that the hyenas had used the cave as a den and brought in remains of the various animals they fed on. This hypothesis was supported by the fact that many of the bones showed signs of having been gnawed prior to fossilization, and by the presence of objects Buckland suspected to be fossilized hyena dung. Further analysis, including comparison with the dung of modern spotted hyena
Spotted Hyena
The spotted hyena also known as laughing hyena, is a carnivorous mammal of the family Hyaenidae, of which it is the largest extant member. Though the species' prehistoric range included Eurasia extending from Atlantic Europe to China, it now only occurs in all of Africa south of the Sahara save...
s living in menagerie
Menagerie
A menagerie is/was a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to...
s, confirmed the identification of the fossilized dung.
He published his analysis in an 1822 paper he read to the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
. A few days before reading the formal paper he gave the following colorful account at a dinner held by the Geological Society
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...
:
The hyaenas, gentlemen, preferred the flesh of elephants, rhinoceros, deer, cows, horses, etc., but sometimes, unable to procure these, & half starved, they used to come out of the narrow entrance of their cave in the evening down to the water's edge of a lake which must once have been there, & so helped themselves to some of the innumerable water-rats in wh[ich] the lake abounded.
He developed these ideas further in his 1823 book Reliquiae Diluvianae; or, Observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, and on other geological phenomena, attesting the action of an universal deluge, challenging the belief that the bones were brought to the cave by Noah's flood and providing detailed evidence that instead hyenas had used the cave as a den into which they brought the bones of their prey.
Impact and legacy
The specimens were an original part of the archaeology collection of the Yorkshire MuseumYorkshire Museum
The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It is the home of the Cawood sword, and has four permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology and astronomy...
and it is said that "the scientific interest aroused founded the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
Yorkshire Philosophical Society
The Yorkshire Philosophical Society is a charitable learned society aimed at promoting the natural sciences, archaeology and history. The society was formed in York in December 1822 by James Atkinson, William Salmond, Anthony Thorpe and William Vernon....
". While criticized by some, William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
's analysis of Kirkland Cave and other bone caves was widely seen as a model for how careful analysis could be used to reconstruct the Earth's past, and the Royal Society awarded William Buckland the Copley Medal
Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
in 1822 for his Kirkdale paper. At the presentation the society's president, Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet FRS MRIA was a British chemist and inventor. He is probably best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine...
, said:
by these inquiries, a distinct epoch has, as it were, been established in the history of the revolutions of our globe: a point fixed from which our researches may be pursued through the immensity of ages, and the records of animate nature, as it were, carried back to the time of the creation.
Region
The cave is a Site of Special Scientific InterestSite of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
and a Geological Conservation Review
Geological Conservation Review
The Geological Conservation Review is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological and geomorphological features of Britain...
site.
The Saxon
Anglo-Saxon architecture
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing...
St Gregory's Minster
St Gregory's Minster
St Gregory's Minster is an Anglo-Saxon church with a rare sundial, in Kirkdale near Kirkbymoorside, Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building.The minster was built c...
with its unusual sundial
Kirkdale sundial
thumb|right|Kirkdale sundialThe Saxon sundial at St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale, near Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England dates to the mid 11th century. The panel containing the actual sundial above the church doors is flanked by two panels, bearing an inscription in Old English:*Richard...
is nearby.
External links
- SSSI details from Natural EnglandNatural EnglandNatural England is the non-departmental public body of the UK government responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved...
- GCR details from Joint Nature Conservation CommitteeJoint Nature Conservation CommitteeThe Joint Nature Conservation Committee is the statutory adviser to the UK Government on national and international nature conservation. Its work contributes to maintaining and enriching biological diversity, conserving geological features and sustaining natural systems...