Ossom's Eyrie Gave: an archaeological contribution to the recent history of vertebrates in Britain

Ossom's Eyrie Cave, a small cave in the face of a limestone cliff, has yielded an extensive vertebrate fauna which documents important changes over the last 2000 years. There seem to be three major contributions to the fauna. A short-lived Romano-British occupation provides dating evidence for the lower levels, and may have contributed a few bones of larger species (sheep/goat, pig, fowl). A golden eagle nested on the cave ledge at a later time, and brought as food medium to large birds and mammals, including black grouse, raven, polecat, pine marten, juvenile fox, badger, roe deer and wild boar. Many of these species are locally extinct. There is an extensive small mammal fauna of over 4200 individuals, which occurs throughout the deposits and dominates the top layers representing the diet of a barn owl. Important changes in this fauna include the sudden decline of the water vole from around 7% in the earlier layers to less than 1% in the top layers and the disappearance of the dormouse.