Port Kennedy Bone Cave

The Port Kennedy Bone Cave is a limestone cave in the Port Kennedy section of Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania, USA.[1] The Bone Cave "contained one of the most important middle Pleistocene (Irvingtonian, approximately 750,000 years ago) fossil deposits in North America".[2]

Port Kennedy Bone Cave
LocationValley Forge National Historic Park, Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania
Depth50 ft (15 m)
Discoveryc. 1894
GeologyPotsdam Limestone
Entrances1
Hazardsburied
AccessRestricted

History

The fossils in the cave were investigated by noted 19th-century palaeontologists Edward Drinker Cope, Henry C. Mercer, and Charles M. Wheatley. Some of the fossils, such as an unnamed member of the beetle genus of Dicaelus are unique to this cave and have not been identified elsewhere.[3]

The cave was originally discovered by limestone miners in the 19th century.[4] It was later filled in with asbestos-bearing industrial refuse and the cave's location was lost. The village of Port Kennedy was largely demolished in the 1960s during construction of the U.S. Route 422 Expressway. The tract containing the cave became part of the Valley Forge National Historical Park in 1978. In 2005, the National Park Service and geologists rediscovered the cave.[5]

It has been rumored that the quarry near where the cave is located near holds a crashed locomotive, which was used in the shooting of a now lost silent film in 1915, The Valley of Lost Hope.[5]

Remains found in the cave

Insects

Numerous insect remains were found embedded in clay masses in the cave.[3]

These included:

Vertebrates

Mastodon americanus remains were found.[8]

Others included:[9]

Megalonyx

Arvicola

Mylodon

Sciurus

  • Sciurus calycinus

Jaculus

  • Jaculus hudsonius
Others

Notes
  1. Synonym of Ateuchus Weber, 1801[6]
  2. Synonym of Phanaeus Macleay, 1819[7]
  3. Synonym of Megalonyx wheatleyi Cope, 1871[10]
  4. Synonym of Megatherium jeffersonii (Desmarest, 1822)[11]
  5. Synonym of Megalonyx wheatleyi Cope, 1871[12]
  6. Synonym of Megalonyx wheatleyi Cope, 1871[13]
  7. Syn. of Microtus guildayi (van der Meulen, 1978)[14]
  8. Synonym of Microtus Schrank, 1798[15]
  9. Synonym of Ondatra idahoensis (Wilson, 1933)[16]
  10. Synonym of Hystrix dorsata (Linnaeus, 1758)[17]
  11. Synonym of Ochotonidae Thomas, 1897[18][19]
  12. Synonym of Tapirus terrestris subsp. terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758)[20]
  13. Synonym of Meleagris altus Marsh, 1872[21]

References
  1. Circa-1894 photo of the entrance to the Bone Cave, from Bucks County Historical Society.
  2. Bechtel, Timothy D.; Jaime L. Hojdila; Samuel H. Baughman II; Toni DeMayo; Edward Doheny (2005). "Relost and refound: Detection of a paleontologically, historically, cinematically(?), and environmentally important solution feature in the carbonate belt of southeastern Pennsylvania". The Leading Edge. 24 (5): 537. doi:10.1190/1.1926813. ISSN 1070-485X.
  3. Society, American Entomological; Horn, M.D., George M. (December 1876). "Notes on some Coleopterous Remains from the bone cave at Port Kennedy, Penna.". Transactions of the American Entomological Society. 5. The Society. pp. 241–245. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  4. "PORT KENNEDY BONE CAVE MONTGOMERY COUNTY" (PDF). DCNR. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  5. Hojdila, Jamie; Toni DeMayo; Sam Baughman; Tim Bechtel; Margaret Carfioli (Fall 2005). "Sidebar--The long-lost cave has been found!". Park Science. National Park Service. 23 (2). ISSN 1090-9966. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  6. Choeridium ebeninum Horn, 1876 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121437033 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  7. Phanaeus antiquus Horn, 1876 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121436938 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  8. Cope, ED. (1871) Preliminary report on the vertebrata discovered in the Port Kennedy Bone Cave. American Philosophical Society, 12:73-102.
  9. Society, American Philosophical; Cope, E. D. (1873). "PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE VERTEBRATA DISCOVERED IN THE PORT KENNEDY BONE CAVE". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge. 12. The Society. pp. 73–98. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
  10. Megalonyx loxodon Cope, 1871 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121479995 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  11. Megalonyx dissimilis Leidy, 1855 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121479959 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  12. Megalonyx sphenodon Cope, 1871 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121479987 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  13. Megalonyx tortulus Cope, 1871 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121479984 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  14. Arvicola sigmodus Cope, 1871 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121533848 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  15. Arvicola didelta (Cope, 1871) in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset doi:10.15468/zzoyxi accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  16. Arvicola hiatidens (Cope, 1871) in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121534141 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  17. Erethizon cloacinum Cope, 1871 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121535504 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  18. Praotherium palatinum (Cope, 1871) in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121536983 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  19. "†Praotherium palatinum Cope 1871 (squirrel)". fossilworks.
  20. Tapirus americanus (Gmelin, 1788) in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/137383107 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.
  21. Meleagris superbus Cope, 1870 in Paleobiology Database (2018). The Paleobiology Database. Checklist dataset https://www.gbif.org/species/121508827 accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-09-21.

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