Alice and Gwendoline Cave facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Alice and Gwendoline Cave |
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|---|---|
| Uaimh Ailíse agus Gwendoline | |
| Location | Edenvale, Ennis, County Clare |
| OSI/OSNI grid | 319 745 R 319 745 |
| Geology | Limestone |
| Entrances | 1 |
The Alice and Gwendoline Cave is a fascinating limestone cave located in County Clare, Ireland. It became famous for a very special discovery: ancient brown bear bones with marks that show they were cut by humans. This amazing find changed what we thought we knew about when the first people lived in Ireland, pushing that date back by over two thousand years!
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Where is the Alice and Gwendoline Cave?
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The Alice and Gwendoline Cave is found about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) southwest of Ennis. It's close to a place called Edenvale House and a lake known as Edenvale Lough.
Discovering Ancient History in the Cave
How the Cave Got Its Name
This cave was once known as the Bull Paddock Cave. Later, it was renamed to honor two daughters of Alice Julia Stacpoole: Alice Jane and Gwendoline Clare Surprise. These girls were nieces of a well-known person named Thomas Johnson Westropp. Scientists first explored the cave way back in 1902.
The Amazing Bear Bone Discovery
In 2016, something incredible happened. Scientists were looking through old samples that had been collected from the cave in 1902. These samples were stored at the National Museum of Ireland. Among them, they found a bear's kneecap, also called a patella.
What made this bone so special? It had clear cut marks on it. These marks showed that someone had tried to remove the tendons from the bone. Tendons are strong cords that connect muscles to bones. In ancient times, people used tendons for many things, like sewing clothes, making fletching (feathers on arrows), and hafting (attaching tools to handles).
Changing Ireland's Timeline
Scientists used special tests to find out how old the bear bone was. They discovered it dated back to the Upper Paleolithic period, between 10860 and 10641 BC. This date is super important! It means that humans were in Ireland over two thousand years earlier than previously thought. Before this discovery, the oldest known human site in Ireland was the Mount Sandel Mesolithic site, which dates to about 7900 BC.
Dr. Marion Dowd from IT Sligo and Dr. Ruth Carden from the National Museum of Ireland were the two scientists who made this groundbreaking discovery. Their work helped rewrite a part of Ireland's very early history!
