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GEOPARK BLOG

The Origins Dig Diary

6th September
Today was a very exciting day as it seems that we have a lot fantastic bones coming from the caves which all seem to be from a Woolly Rhino, which is extremely thrilling. Tubs upon tubs of cave earth (sediment) were being carried out from the caves all today, leaving poor Beth and I working non stop!

Things are starting to look up, as it seems every time we excavate more of the trench, more fantastic bones from Woolly Rhino, hyena and other extinct animals from tens of thousands of years ago are turning up. Also which is very interesting, we have had a small of amount of charcoal and burnt bone come up through the caves; which we discovered today through the sifting process. This is fantastic as when these are Radio-Carbon Dated, they may be able to give us a clearer idea of when our ancestors were in these caves. From an anthropological point of view I find it fascinating because it opens up the caves as a possible temporary home. There does not seem to be enough evidence to suggest that the caves were used as a long and permanent home, though from the evidence we have uncovered in this past week, we can be certain that they used the caves as a seasonal habitat, where deer were within close enough proximity to the caves to be hunted for food, skin and use their antlers for weapons.

Also 10 members of the Young Archaeology Club visited today which is a joint children's club with Kents Cavern and Torquay Museum. The group had the rare opportunity of learning the techniques for being an archaeologist. They saw the excavation in action; looks like part of a woolly rhino tibia is visible-how exciting!! Afterwards they went down to the sieving tent to speak to Beth and see some of the bones appearing from the mesh bags.

We wait hungrily for what happens tomorrow...!

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