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Neolithic bats from Dowel Cave, Derbyshire
Author(s) -
Yalden D. W.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.915
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1469-7998
pISSN - 0952-8369
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1986.tb03661.x
Subject(s) - cave , dowel , biology , archaeology , zoology , ecology , geography , engineering , structural engineering
If the post‐glacial history of British mammals is poorly documented (Yalden, 1982), then that of the bats is particularly poorly understood. Yet the history of the bat fauna is potentially very interesting; woodland species such as Myotis bechsteini and Plecotus spp. should have been much more numerous when woodland was more extensive, and various southern species such as P. austriacus and Rhinolophus ferrumequinum might have spread further north in warmer periods. In Poland, Woloszyn (1970) has documented numerous cave faunas, probably of Neolithic age, in which M. bechsteini was indeed very numerous (it is now as rare in Poland as in Britain). Myotis bechsteini is also reputed to be numerous in the Neolithic flint mines of Grimes Graves, Norfolk (Clarke, 1963), though no details of numbers seem to have been published.