Alice and Gwendoline Cave
| Alice and Gwendoline Cave | |
|---|---|
| Uaimh Ailíse agus Gwendoline | |
  | |
| Location | Edenvale, Ennis, County Clare |
| OSI/OSNI grid | R 319 745 |
| Coordinates | 52°49′04″N 9°00′34″W / 52.817650°N 9.009355°W |
| Geology | Limestone |
| Entrances | 1 |
The Alice and Gwendoline Cave is a limestone cave in County Clare, Ireland. It was first investigated by scholars in 1902. In 2016, a bear patella with butchery marks found in the cave was dated to the Upper Palaeolithic, which is the oldest known evidence of human habitation in Ireland.
Location
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The Alice and Gwendoline Cave is located on the grounds of Edenvale House, about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) southwest of Ennis in Cahircalla townland.[1]
Archaeology
[edit]In 1902, a team of archaeologists investigated five caves in County Clare, including Alice and Gwendoline Cave. Previously called the Bull Paddock Cave, it was renamed for two daughters of Alice Julia Stacpoole, the then-owner of the land on which the cave is located. Stacpoole was the sister of antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp, who was on the investigation team.[1] During excavation, charcoal, animal bones, human bones, and artefacts including stone tools, worked bone objects, a gold Viking arm-ring, iron nails, and amber beads were recovered. The strata had been disturbed, evidenced by artefacts of different periods being found together. A portion of the thousands of animal bones found in the cave was deposited in the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History in the 1920s.[2]
In 2011, animal osteologist Ruth Carden identified a butchered bear patella from Alice and Gwendoline Cave in the National Museum's collection. Bears went extinct in Ireland in the Middle Bronze Age, and evidence of human interaction with bears in Ireland is rare. The bear patella was radiocarbon-dated to 10,860–10,641 cal. BC, which places it in the late Upper Palaeolithic.[3] Due to this unexpectedly early date, a second sample was radiocarbon-dated, which produced similar results. The cut marks were characteristic of having been cut into fresh bone with a flint tool, perhaps for the purpose of removing the tendons from the bear to use as cordage. The patella is not weathered, suggesting it was not transported from elsewhere into the cave. It may indicate settlement activity near the site.[4][5]
Previously, the earliest evidence of human habitation in Ireland was that of Mount Sandel, a Mesolithic site in County Derry. The dating of the bear patella is within the Younger Dryas, when small groups of humans may have been migrating to Ireland and elsewhere in Northwestern Europe due to more hospitable conditions.[6]
References
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Dowd, Marion (2016). "A remarkable cave discovery". Archaeology Ireland. 30 (2): 21–25. ISSN 0790-892X. JSTOR 43816774.
- Scharff, R. F.; Ussher, R. J.; Cole, Grenville A. J.; Newton, E. T.; Dixon, A. Francis; Westropp, T. J. (1906). "The Exploration of the Caves of County Clare". Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. 33: 1–76. JSTOR 30078871.
Further reading
[edit]- Dowd, Marion; Bonsall, James; Kahlert, Thorsten; Connolly, Rory; Stimpson, Chris (2021). "Revisiting Alice and Gwendoline Cave, Co. Clare: new light on the 1902 excavations". Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 121C: 1–53. doi:10.1353/ria.2021.0006. ISSN 2009-0048.
- Dowd, Marion; Carden, Ruth (2016). "First evidence of a Late Upper Palaeolithic human presence in Ireland". Quaternary Science Reviews. 139: 158–163. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.02.029. ISSN 1873-457X.
- Dowd, Marion; Stimpson, Chris; Connolly, Rory; Bonsall, James; Kahlert, Thorsten; McLaughlin, Rowan (2024). "New insights on the fauna of Ireland's Younger Dryas and Early Holocene from Alice & Gwendoline Cave". Quaternary Science Reviews. 339. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108827. ISSN 1873-457X.