Direct dating confirms the presence of otter and badger in early Holocene Ireland

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location of sites with extant evidence of mammals mentioned in the text.

Figure 2. Location of Derragh, Co. Longford. Inset map on the top left shows the location of Derragh on the island of Ireland.

Table 1. Earliest evidence of Irish mammal species, excluding bats as they may have used airborne dispersals. Three categories of fossil evidence are listed including the least strong e.g. culturally dating, which is subject to erroneous associations due to layer remixing, and strongest (directly dated), in addition genetic evidence is presented.

		Fossil evidence		Genetic evidence	Citation
Taxa	Associated with culturally dated material	Associated with C^14 dated material	Directly C^14 dated
brown bear Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758	–	–	Early Mesolithic	Glacial survival	Woodman (2015)
mountain hare Lepus timidus hibernicus	–	Early Mesolithic (secure context)	–	Glacial survival	Woodman (1985)
Eurasian stoat Mustela ermine Bell 1837	–	–	Early Mesolithic	Glacial survival	Martínková, McDonald, and Searle (2007); Woodman, McCarthy, and Monaghan (1997)
wolf Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758	–	Early Mesolithic (secure context)	–	–	Woodman (1985)
wild pig Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758	–	Early Mesolithic	Early Mesolithic	–	Woodman (1985)
Lynx Felis lynx Linnaeus, 1758	–	–	Early Mesolithic	–	Woodman, McCarthy, and Monaghan (1997)
wild cat Felis. silvestris Schreber, 1777)	Mesolithic (unsecure context)	Early Mesolithic	–	–	Ryan (1980); Scharff 1906a)
Otter Lutra lutra Linnaeus, 1758	–	Mesolithic layer	–	Long established	Sleeman (2014); Spindler (2018)
badger Ursus meles Linnaeus, 1758	–	Mesolithic/Neolithic/Medieval	Early medieval	Neolithic- Medieval	Frantz et al. (2014); McCormick (1999); Sleeman (2014)
Martes martes Linnaeus, 1758	–	–	Late Bronze Age		Woodman, McCarthy, and Monaghan (1997)
red fox Vulpes vulpes Linnaeus, 1758	–	Early Bronze age	–	Early post glacial colonisation	McCormick (1999); Allan D. McDevitt et al. (2022)
red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758	–	–	–	–	McCormick (1999)
wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus Linnaeus, 1758	–	Early Mesolithic	–	–	Preece, Coxon, and Robinson (1986)
pygmy shrew Sorex minutus Linnaeus, 1766	–	–	–	mid to late Holocene	Mascheretti et al. (2003)

Table 2. Fauna remains analysed by the study.

Find id	Level	Context	Context overview	Layer cultural association	Taxa	Element
B563	D	93	A peat context including blades and flakes, one core and debitage	Mesolithic	Otter (Lutra lutra)	cranium
B493	H/I	38	A coarse sand and gravel layer with wood and bones. It is contemporary with the stone and gravel platform.	Mesolithic	Badger (Meles meles)	Immature tibia

Figure 3. Carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope ratio values from otter and badger remains with other fauna and humans values from the Irish Mesolithic.

Table 3. AMS radiocarbon dates δ ¹³C and δ ¹⁵N values. Dates are calibrated at the 2-sigma confidence with the IntCal20 curve (Reimer et al. 2013), in the OxCal programme (Bronk Ramsey 2009).

AMS Nr.	Taxa	% Collagen	^13C	^15N	%C	%N	C:N	^14C Age	1s Err	cal BP (95.4%)
MAMS-34673	Otter (Lutra lutra)	18.5	−23.1	10.5	46.3	16.6	3.2	6815	28	7688–7588
MAMS-42400	Badger (Meles meles)	8.03	−19.9	11.36	40.5	15.62	3.4	6147	29	7158–6951

Figure 4. A species accumulation curve with a logarithmic function of the number of identified mammals detected on Mesolithic sites (12 species) indicates there is a likelihood of undetected early Holocene species. Includes seal and dolphin. This analysis does not take into account of multiple examples of a species on a site.

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