ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Bones in the Bog: Giant Deer, Ancient Landscapes, and the Politics of Prehistory in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

• In Event: Stratigraphy, Deep Time, and the Making of Geological Knowledge 2

English Abstract

Excavations of Ireland’s peat bogs in the nineteenth century turned up an ever stranger array of relics of the past, from subterranean forests and ancient settlement ruins to remarkably well-preserved human remains. Among these were the bones of Megaloceros giganteus, a now extinct member of the deer family that carried the various monikers of Moose, Irish Elk, and eventually, Giant Irish Deer. In this paper, I examine how antiquarians, paleontologists, and other naturalists used the bones of Megaloceros to theorize about Ireland’s past environments and the chronology of early humans on the island. Because of their staggering size (with antlers measuring nearly twelve feet across), the specimens of the extinct Irish Deer circulated as both scientific text and commodity. And where bones flowed, controversy followed. I delve into epistolary networks that connected savants and scientists to taxidermists, fossil dealers, and farmers (the latter, often being the first to discover bog artifacts). While accusations of bone fraud troubled museum curators and collectors, debates erupted in the pages of scientific journals over whether the animal had been an antediluvial creature of prehistory or had succumbed to the human hunter’s arrow in recent times. I argue that investigations into the Giant Irish Deer reveal how Irish peat bogs became a contested archive of extinction. By emphasizing the intersections among prehistory, geologic knowledge, and colonialism, the paper offers new insights into the politics of deep time and the practice of natural history in Ireland.

Author

• Cameron Daddis, University of Wisconsin-Madison