Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #IrishCaveBones
Most recents (7)
#IrishCaveBones Day7(final thread from @RuthFCarden ): 1/n Apologies people, a delayed start to my final thread here today on @IrelandsEnviro - a friend called over for a catch up and coffee. So with some blueberries to hand, let's get into this. I must say it's been great fun &
2/n very much enjoyable for me to have had this chance to share our wonderful research on #IrishCaveBones with you all, and to find that you all find it as fascinating and exciting as I/we do! Thank you all for following along this week, your RTs, comments and interest.
3/n And thank you to David for the invite to come on here to share too. Hope to return next year for another update on our #IrishCaveBones research and hopefully lots more results to share, with stories about Ireland's past ecoystems and animals.
#IrishCaveBones Day6: 1/n It's me again, @RuthFCarden, I have my mug of tea (Lyons gold blend and I'm not sorry!), let's bring ye into my world of animal bones in a bit more detail... ye have seen all the incredible knowledge we have gained about Ireland & it's past animals in
2/n previous threads this week. But all this knowledge and more, stems from the actual #IrishCaveBones themselves and their correct identification. Now, some of ye when I say bones, might picture whole, intact bones, like these below ... 
3/n These whole, complete, intact bones and skulls are a rare occurrence from Irish caves (and most archaeological animal bone assemblages). In reality, I am faced with a pile of bone fragments, and these are the fragments that if you 'listen' carefully too, tell me their secrets
#IrishCaveBones Day5: 1/n So let's continue on our time travelling & jump forward in time to c.14,000 years BP & then continue from there. We do have a gap of knowledge between c.17,000 to c.14,000 years simply due to lack funding for radiocarbon dating of bones & other analysis.
2/n @RuthFCarden here again, tonight I have a mug of mint tea to join me on this thread. We do hope to get some of that time gap addressed, if we can, between now & end @IrishResearch grant Sept. '24. Tonight let's focus on what happened and a particular human-animal relationship
3/n Ireland's landscape was a nice place of many kinds of animals, those that stayed/recolonised after the last Ice Age and got back in before Ireland became an island c.17kyrsBP. Lots of woodlands pockets, amongst grass plains, where giant deer roamed & grazed their way through.
#IrishCaveBones 1/n May the (Day) 4(th) be with you all! (sorry couldn't help StarWars ref with the day that's in it!). Now, I'm (@RuthFCarden) going to grab mug of tea & I suggest you grab your choice beverage, I don't know how long this will be - a lot of info & Qs to ask.
@RuthFCarden 2/n Now, let's get into tonight's thread, all about Ireland's animals - origins, what does the word native mean and to whom and how we use it, what we mean by naturalised species, (re)introductions and so on, but we need to start back in time first of all...
3/n...back to Irish caves and the secrets contained in them - #IrishCaveBones - I need to set the scene first before moving on. An important project was completed in the mid 1990s by the late Prof. Peter Woodman - called the Irish Quaternary Fauna Project. Published in 1997 in
#IrishCaveBones Day 3 🧵 1/n @RuthFCarden back again (with coffee in hand). A few of you have asked how did the animal bones get into the caves in Ireland? This is a great question but there are no simple answers, rather likely a mixture of different ways.....
2/n We saw how tight some passages are in Castlepook cave yesterday, so how did XXL sized Wooly mammoth bones, like the humerus front leg bone in photo, end up inside, deep underground?
3/n Bone caves, where animal bones have been found in caves, and bone-bearing cracks within/outside of limestone caves, are important sources of fossil animals but at times there is little cave sediment associated with these bones. There is an important relationship between
#IrishCaveBones 1/n Day 2: @RuthFCarden here again. Hope ye grab a mug or choice beverage, let's see how long I go with tonight's thread. Tangents are probably a given as it's all so interesting. Open to questions throughout, I'll do my best to answer them once finished.
2/n We need to go back to the start of cave exploration in Ireland, the originals so to speak, to put into context what was done and how it effects our current/future cave excavation research. There are over 300 caves in Ireland, majority of them are found in limestone rock.
3/n There are large numbers of caves found in numerous counties in Ireland - Tipperary, Cork, Waterford, Clare, Kerry, Sligo and so on. Caves are really important habitats in their own right too - bats roost in them, hibernate there over winter & we find bat bones in them too...
Day1: Intro 🧵
Thanks to @IrelandsEnviro for inviting me on to chat to ye all about our research & work on #IrishCaveBones, cave research, past ecosystems & humans/animals in Ireland during past c.50,000 years! so we start-some background first, why we started and who we are. 1/n
Thanks to @IrelandsEnviro for inviting me on to chat to ye all about our research & work on #IrishCaveBones, cave research, past ecosystems & humans/animals in Ireland during past c.50,000 years! so we start-some background first, why we started and who we are. 1/n
2/n Back in 2006/7, I was researching the origins of red deer in Ireland, along with some others. I approached @NMIreland Natural History Division to access animal bones that had been excavated from Irish caves in late 1800s to mid 1900s, seeking red deer bones if present.
3/n I did indeed find ancient red deer bones and antler (as we wanted to compare ancient DNA with modern Irish populations to determine if any were descended from ancient populations), but also found bones that were listed as red deer, but were not - pig, sheep, horse!
