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The Quaternary Mammal Collections at the Somerset County Museum, Taunton

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The Quaternary Mammal Collections at the Somerset County Museum, Taunton 7 The Quaternary Mammal Collections at the Somerset County Museum, Taunton Andrew Currant Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth and seems to have gone to some trouble in distin- century, the fossil mammal collection belonging to guishing between the faunas from different sites. By the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History contrast, Williams was after “cabinet” specimens. Society (SANHS) housed at Taunton Castle was one He creamed-off some of the better material but kept of the most famous in Britain. In its early years no record of its locality – his specimens are distin- the society had the foresight to acquire, by public guished solely by being marked with an abbreviation subscription, the geological collections of Rev David of his name (“Wms”). Williams (1792–1850), Rector of Bleadon and William Bidgood, curator of the Society’s Kingston Seymour, and of William Beard (1772– museum from 1862 to 1901, took great interest 1868), the two most notable collectors of mate- in the Quaternary teeth and bones, transforming rial from the Pleistocene bone caves of western them into a first class research collection which Mendip. The Williams and Beard Collections was widely used by specialists of the day. His included material from the sites of Bleadon Cavern, skills as a curator were quite exceptional, and some Hutton Cavern, Banwell Bone Cave and Sandford of his beautiful lithographs of SANHS specimens Hill (Rutter 1829; Bidgood 1879). Through time, were used in the early parts of the Palaeontograph- these collections were augmented by numerous other ical Society Monographs on the British Pleistocene acquisitions, notably material from the early exca- Mammalia, a series of works by various authors vations at Hyaena Den at Wookey Hole (Dawkins containing many descriptions and illustrations of 1862, 1863a) and an important series of specimens specimens from Taunton Museum (eg Dawkins and brought together by Arthur Bulleid from the Burtle Sanford 1868). Both William Boyd Dawkins and W Beds of the Somerset Levels (Bulleid and Jackson Ashford Sanford were heavily involved in work on 1937). the Mendip cave material, and it is largely through As a collector, William Beard far outstripped the their efforts that the collection became more widely Rev Williams in both zeal and attention to detail. known in scientific circles. Beard is described as being a rather obsessive, self- After Bidgood’s death the Quaternary mammal important character and the subject of some consid- collections at Taunton underwent a prolonged period erable amusement to the many visitors who came of benign neglect. Significant parts of the original to see him and his collection at his home at Bone collection remained on display in the Great Hall Cottage, Banwell. He was a good collector by at Taunton Castle but the rest of the material was the standards of his day, clearly going to some shuffled around from place to place as the domi- pains to acquire, whenever possible, anatomically nant focus of the Society’s activities and interests comprehensive material of the species represented changed from natural history to the county’s rich 39 40 Andrew Currant archaeological record. Although storage conditions The major sites represented in the collection were probably not ideal, the collection seems to are documented in the chronological order of their have survived in reasonable order up until the early contained faunas. All of the material has been 1970s at which time someone is believed to have completely re-identified as if it was newly collected ordered its disposal. The survival of the material is so there is no reference to or reliance on previous attributed to the action of AD Hallam who hid many accounts. This is the first reappraisal of the contents of the bones in a coal shed behind the old curator’s of the SANHS Quaternary mammal collection for house at Taunton Castle. Naturally enough, details of over a century and a good opportunity to convey to what went on in this period are obscure and undoc- the Society an outline of the results of this project. umented, but this was definitely the low point in the history of this remarkable collection. In the early 1990s Dennis Parsons, Curator of Quaternary Subdivisions Natural History for the Somerset County Museums In recent years there have been big changes in our Service (SCMS), contacted the author asking for understanding of Quaternary climatic events and a advice. The Quaternary mammal collection had by corresponding change in the terminology currently then been rediscovered, boxed and put into store in use to describe the subdivision of the more but it was still in a very sorry state. Material recent part of the geological record. Throughout from each of the sites had been mixed together, this account the new subdivision of the Quater- many specimens were broken and everything was nary Period based on Oxygen Isotope Stages (OIS) covered in grime. An initial examination showed will be used. Oxygen Isotope Stages are based that the collection was potentially salvageable but on long marine sequences recovered from sedi- that a major undertaking would be required to get ments on the deep ocean floor which record major it back into usable condition. Over the next few changes in global ice volume through the varying years the author, Dr Roger Jacobi and Dr Danielle ratio of oxygen isotopes in the skeletons of fossil Schreve spent hundreds of hours cleaning, repairing, foraminifera. At times of high global ice volume the sorting, identifying and cataloguing the teeth and ratio of 18O to 16O in seawater rises because land bones, and eventually arranging the collection in ice is isotopically light. This leads to 18O enrich- new storage units acquired for the purpose by the ment in the oceans during cold phases. The periods SCMS. Dennis Parsons put in a huge amount of of low relative 18O values are given odd numbers, work supporting our visits, raising funds and person- OIS 1 being the present warm stage, OIS 3 being ally moving the collections back and forth between a relatively warm but very unstable period in the the workroom at Taunton Castle and the Bindon middle of the Devensian cold stage, OIS 5 repre- Road Stores. Adrian Doyle from the Natural History senting the Ipswichian or Last Interglacial and OIS Museum (NHM) conducted a conservation survey 7 the penultimate interglacial. The intervening even of the collection and on the basis of his report the numbered stages represent periods of high global ice SCMS employed Simon Jones to carry out an exten- volume, OIS 2 representing the Late Devensian or sive programme of controlled cleaning and conser- Last Glacial Maximum, OIS 4 the Early Devensian vation. This work has gone exceptionally well and OIS 6 an intensely cold period prior to the Last and the collection is now in very good physical Interglacial. condition. Our manuscript catalogue of the collec- tion, comprising over 10,000 specimens, is currently being entered into the museum’s computer catalogue Bleadon Cavern by Mark Davis. Supporting our efforts on the collection itself, Sue Bleadon Cavern (ST 36065813) is one of a number Goodman was commissioned to compile a bibli- of caves and fissures reported from beneath Hutton ography of things relating to the collection and to Hill in western Mendip. The site was collected from search for archival information relating to Beard, by Beard and to a lesser extent by Williams from Williams and other people closely associated with 1833 to 1834. This cave, the location of which was work on the faunal remains. Her work has proved lost for many years, was rediscovered in 1970 and immensely useful to the project. Irwin and Richards (1997) have recently confirmed Quaternary Mammals 41 its identity through archival sources. Surviving frag- was successfully relocated in 1828 and Beard and ments of cave matrix show that bones and teeth Williams were able to collect quite a large quantity were very abundant, mostly broken and were densely of well preserved material. The cave was filled with packed in a confused mass. This kind of assem- soft ochreous earth and appears to have been very blage, usually associated with debris flows, suggests prone to collapse. We do not know a great deal about secondary movement of the bone-bearing deposits the distribution of bone other than the fact that it was within the cave, possibly under periglacial condi- abundant, but surviving material shows that many of tions. In spite of this the assemblage looks very the animals probably came in as complete carcasses. coherent and there is no obvious evidence of mixture This collection is notable for its wolf and horse of material of more than one age. material and for the occurrence of a small number of The collection is particularly notable for its lion, teeth representing a distinctive form of the mammoth horse, wild boar, red deer, roe deer and bovine – often referred to as the “Ilford-type mammoth” remains. It is believed to represent the accumula- after the locality in the Thames Valley where its tion of debris within a lion den in which cubs were fossils are common. Unusually, there are no bovine raised. The abundance of horse and of wild boar remains recorded from Hutton Cavern. The abun- (an otherwise rare animal in the British Pleistocene dance of wolves may suggest that this site was a record) is probably accounted for by the known prey wolf den but there is little taphonomic evidence in selection preferences of modern lions. Comparison the form of gnawing marks or breakage patterns with mammalian faunas from open sites strongly to back up this assumption. The mammals fit in supports correlation of this assemblage with one of well with a late OIS 7 age, rather younger than the warmer parts of OIS 7 (Schreve 1997).
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