Joint Anglo/Dutch rescue excavation of the Mare aux Songes fossil Dodo site, Mauritius

毛里求斯的松海是一片由泥炭沉积物组成的沼泽地带，在20世纪60年代和后来的1910年左右，这里发现了灭绝的渡渡鸟的骨骼残骸。这是已知的唯一发现这种标志性鸟类遗骸的地点。该地区将被开发用于旅游业，包括住房和高尔夫事业。因此，该地点大部分将被摧毁，2006年8月以后肯定无法进行科学调查。我们的目标是，与荷兰考古学家合作，在商业开发之前和开发的初始阶段，从遗址中收集文物。这项工程本质上是一次救援挖掘。人类对敏感的海洋岛屿的影响有据可查。大型动物的灭绝，如巨龟和不会飞的鸟，一直是人类占领岛屿的标志，因为Moari人到达新西兰。人类在16世纪到达毛里求斯，在很短的时间内，渡渡鸟和陆龟都消失了。其他动物群也消失了，但缺乏小型脊椎动物存在的文献证据。这个项目的目的是对松海的脊椎动物化石进行取样，使我们能够更好地记录人类到达该岛之前的脊椎动物。这将通过在遗址商业开发之前进行科学的“考古”式挖掘来实现，并在遗址基础（排水沟、水池和基础）的初始挖掘阶段进行“抢点”收集，挖掘将提供重要的但临时的地层剖面，可能达到早期工人未调查的水平。这将是通过松海获得地层剖面的第一次尝试，并将为以前收集的材料提供背景数据。项目的这一阶段是根据紧急申请程序提交的。它只涉及野外数据和标本的收集。它与数据的分析无关。根据NERC的建议，对此的支持将在正常的小额赠款申请下提交。

The Mare aux Songes of Mauritius is a marshy tract of land composed of peat deposits that, in the 1860's and later around 1910 yielded skeletal remains of the extinct dodo. This is the only site known to yield remains of this iconic bird. The site is about to be developed for tourism, including housing and a golf cause. consequently, the site will largely be destroyed and certainly will not be avaible for scientific investigation after August 2006. It iis our aim, in collaboration with Dutch archaeologists to collect from the site prior to its commercial development, and during the initial phase of development. This project is essentially a rescue dig. Man's impact on sensitive oceanic islands is well documented. The extinction of macrofauna, such as giant tortoises and flightless birds, has been a signature of man's island occupation since the Moari peoples reached New Zealand. Man reached Mauritius during the 16th century and in a short time both the dodo Raphus and the tortoise Cylindraspis have disappeared. Other fauna has also vanished, but documentary evidence for the presence of small vertebrates is lacking. It is the aim of this project to sample vertebrate fossils from the Mare aux Songes to enable us to better document the vertebrates prior to Man's arrival on the island. This will be achieved by undertaken a scientific 'archaeological' style excavation prior to the sites commercial development, and 'grab' collecting during the initial excavation phaes for the sites foundations (drainage ditches, sumps and footing excavations will provide important, but temporary stratigraphic sections, perhaps reaching levels not investigated by early workers. This will be the first attempt to obtain a stratigraphic section through the Mare aux Songes and will provide contextual data for previously collected material. This phase of the project is submitted under the Urgency Applications procedure. It is only concerned with the collection of field data and speciemns. It is not concerned with the analysis of the data. Support for this will be submitted under a normal small grant application, as per advice from NERC.