How old is Norman the dog?

[senyahnoj]

Had another very enjoyable trip in Slaughter Stream on Saturday.

I was wondering if there was any reasonably authoritative information on how old the dog's skeleton is in Dogs Grave Passage?

Best I've found online is "the bones are believed to date  back into the tens of thousands of years" on http://www.cheddar-caving-club.org.uk/slaughter04/slaughter04.htm

Has any sort of forensic dating of the bones been carried out? I'd also be interested to find out what sort of dog it was.

Thanks

 

[mrodoc]

I think the problem is the bones are no longer bones now but have disintegrated probably making dating impossible. that in itself must make the remains pretty old as intact bones of a bear found in Assynt in a cave date back several tens of thousands of years and they show no signs of disintegrating. if it's a dog it's a dog ie. you are asking what breed was it? Well, it's terrier size (although could have been a puppy) but I cannot see how anybody could tell anymore from the evidence available. 

 

[graham]

It's a while since I've been there but I think mrodoc is right in that they are too far gone to give any useful information. However, that, in itself, is not enough to say that they are very old, as bone can deteriorate quite quickly in some circumstances, just as it can be remarkably well preserved in others.

 

[Ship-badger]

Norman has been studied in some detail by the department of Bristol University that "Alice Roberts" works for (she of the red hair who is one of the presenters of "Coast" among other programmes). They took a tooth and some bone fragments for analysis. I will check what they told us exactly, but IIRC it was along the lines of "it's not really old enough to be able to date it very accurately".
The feeling of those of us who are familiar with the cave and the area is that Norman possibly entered the cave through a pot or fissure in a field that was long-since filled in. If he had entered through Zuree Aven he would not have survived the drop. The Gravity Dig is a possibility, that was definitely open during or after the Victorian era as there are bits of pottery in the debris in that area; but the first footprints were not seen until a long way beyond the Gravity Dig area. Could he have entered through a connecting fissure from a coal mine above? There certainly are coal seams above Slaughter Stream Cave, so this could be a possibility. It's a mystery.
One of the guys from Bristol who saw Norman in the cave said he doubted if he was more than 300 years old.

 

[graham]

Hell, yeah, I forgot Horton had been down there, I'll ask him next time I see him.

 

[mrodoc]

Interesting. Makes you wonder what sort of process causes the bone to disintegrate so rapidly particularly in what seems to be a dry location.

 

[senyahnoj]

Thanks for all your responses. In relation to the dryness of the location we were speculating whether the footprints might have been made when the mud banks were a little bit wetter then they are now (although one would not imagine there was an active streamway at this point).