Even though the best palaeontological discoveries are always made on the last day just as we’re packing up to head home, we did actually make some good finds today. Sieving operations got going up top as well using Carey’s new rig, so overall it was a highly productive day. Just as I was thinking of abandoning Pit B and starting on Pit C, the one that will make us rich and famous due to the remarkable fossils lying hidden therein (we hope), I started to make some really good finds among the tumbled boulders at the base of Pit B. This cave is dominated by a large mountain of collapsed boulders, the base of which became submerged beneath 1–2 metres of sediments as they washed in from the land surface above (at the same time as animals fell in). Not surprisingly, just as we found beautifully preserved partial skeletons of marsupials and birds higher up-slope within the boulder pile, so too below the sediment.
A partial skeleton of a juvenile (young) giant kangaroo Protemnodon is emerging, represented by leg bones and vertebrae, plus what looks like it may be a near-complete skeleton of an eagle. We’ve only found one of these before so this is an exciting discovery. We’ll need to get the specimen back to Flinders University to determine whether it is the same species as the modern wedge-tailed eagle or something new. It may be given that it is at least 780,000 years old and probably much older. Surrounding these larger bones are literally hundreds of songbird bones, a situation mirrored through the rest of the deposit. I’m convinced that we have Australia’s richest and most diverse Pleistocene bird assemblage in the site. All we need is a PhD student to study them! And the dead wren found by Grant yesterday and the live kestrel released by Aidan and Paul today show us that the cave has been acting as a bird death trap for at least a million years, which is just one thing that makes this one of the most interesting and unique palaeontological sites in Australia.
Bones on day 2!
Gavin Prideaux
Even though the best palaeontological discoveries are always made on the last day just as we’re packing up to head home, we did actually make some good finds today. Sieving operations got going up top as well using Carey’s new rig, so overall it was a highly productive day. Just as I was thinking of abandoning Pit B and starting on Pit C, the one that will make us rich and famous due to the remarkable fossils lying hidden therein (we hope), I started to make some really good finds among the tumbled boulders at the base of Pit B. This cave is dominated by a large mountain of collapsed boulders, the base of which became submerged beneath 1–2 metres of sediments as they washed in from the land surface above (at the same time as animals fell in). Not surprisingly, just as we found beautifully preserved partial skeletons of marsupials and birds higher up-slope within the boulder pile, so too below the sediment.
A partial skeleton of a juvenile (young) giant kangaroo Protemnodon is emerging, represented by leg bones and vertebrae, plus what looks like it may be a near-complete skeleton of an eagle. We’ve only found one of these before so this is an exciting discovery. We’ll need to get the specimen back to Flinders University to determine whether it is the same species as the modern wedge-tailed eagle or something new. It may be given that it is at least 780,000 years old and probably much older. Surrounding these larger bones are literally hundreds of songbird bones, a situation mirrored through the rest of the deposit. I’m convinced that we have Australia’s richest and most diverse Pleistocene bird assemblage in the site. All we need is a PhD student to study them! And the dead wren found by Grant yesterday and the live kestrel released by Aidan and Paul today show us that the cave has been acting as a bird death trap for at least a million years, which is just one thing that makes this one of the most interesting and unique palaeontological sites in Australia.