Ice Age bones found

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 29

Ice Age bones found

Exciting discoveries of subfossil bird bones were made last year in the Honeycomb Hill caves in the North West Nelson Forest Park, according to National Museum scientists who with the New Zealand

Forest Service made an intensive study of the caves. The Institute of Nuclear Sciences, D-S.I.R. has estimated the ages of two of the six samples of moa bones collected. The dates are calculated by the rate of decay of radioactive carbon in the bones. One sample was found to be 14,650 years old with a possible error of 250 years; the other 16,200 years with a possible error of 300 years, which indicated that the birds from which the bones came were living at the time of the last Ice Age. They are the oldest major subfossil bird bone deposits discovered in New Zealand. West Coast forests now contain fewer than 20 species of birds, but bones of more than 50 species were found in the Honeycomb Hill cave deposits. Scientists believe that the Oparara Valley, in which the caves lie, may have been protected from the

harshest of the Ice Ages and covered by dense forest. The Honeycomb Hill cave system contains both bones of birds which have been' extinct for thousands of years and of extinct birds previously unknown to science. An exhibition and audiovisual display now on at the National Museum in Buckle Street, Wellington shows the scientists at work and explains why the discovery was so important. It will run until June 10.