The Age of the Woolly Rhino from Dream Cave, Derbyshire, UK

The Dream Cave woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis, is a ʹclassicʹ specimen of a ʹcoldstageʹ fossil fauna from central England. The Find was illustrated and described by Dean William Buckland in his seminal tome Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823) during the first half of the 19th century, and made a significant contribution to the development of Bucklandʹs views on the origin of extinct and extirpated fossil vertebrates. Here we present the first, albeit indirect, radiometric dates on the specimen, and argue that the animal fell into the cave just before 37,000 years before present, during the middle of Marine Isotope Stage 3 Interstadial (39-41 ka).