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Dorothea Minola Alice Bate

1878–1951 · United Kingdom

Natural History Museum palaeontologist who spent 1901 to 1902 searching Cypriot caves and named the pigmy elephant Elephas cypriotes; she also studied fowl bones from a tomb at Aphendrika.

Biography

Dorothea Minola Alice Bate was born at Carmarthen on 8 November 1878 and at 17 began work at the Natural History Museum, sorting bird skins1. In 1901 she went to Cyprus at her own expense and stayed about eighteen months, finding a dozen bone-bearing cave deposits, among them pigmy hippopotamus bones1. A bird she collected at Kuklia Marsh on 27 October 1901 was presented to the Museum and is registered there as 1903.8.2.997.

In 1902, with a Royal Society grant, she found a pigmy elephant in the Kyrenia hills, which she named Elephas cypriotes. Her note on it was read to the Royal Society on 7 May 1903; it says the elephant came from a single deposit that also held many remains of Hippopotamus minutus1,8.

The one contact with archaeology in Cyprus recorded for her is an early third-century BC tomb at Aphendrika, in which fowls had been laid as gifts to the dead. Frederick Zeuner reports that she studied the birds and found them small, with wing bones too short for the body, so that, he concludes, they must have been unable to fly; he cites the tomb to Dray and du Plat Taylor, 19515. She died at Westcliff-on-Sea on 13 January 19512.

Life and work

  1. 1901–1902
    Spent about 18 months in Cyprus at her own expense searching caves for fossil bones; found a dozen deposits, with pigmy hippopotamus bones.

    CyprusDorothea Bate. Wikipedia

  2. 1901
    Presented Cypriot fossil and bird specimens to the British Museum (Natural History); the bird holotype from Kuklia Marsh (collected 27 Oct 1901) is registered there as 1903.8.2.99.

    Rachel L. M. Warren; C. J. O. Harrison (1971). Type-specimens of birds in the British Museum (Natural History), vol. 2: Passerines

  3. 1902
    With a Royal Society grant found in the Kyrenia hills the pigmy elephant she named Elephas cypriotes (note 1903).

    Kyrenia rangeDorothea Bate. Wikipedia

  4. 1902
    Discovered Pleistocene bones and teeth of hippopotamus and pygmy elephant in the Kyrenia range in 1902

    Sir J. T. Hutchinson and Claude Delaval Cobham, A Handbook of Cyprus (1907), p. 28

  5. 7 May 1903
    Her 'Preliminary Note on the Discovery of a Pigmy Elephant in the Pleistocene of Cyprus' was read at the Royal Society: the elephant was found in 1902 during a search for bone-caves in the Kerynia Range, from a single deposit that also held many remains of Hippopotamus minutus.

    LondonRoyal Society, report of meeting of 7 May (1903). Societies and Academies (Royal Society: Bate, 'Preliminary Note on the Discovery of a Pigmy Elephant in the Pleistocene of Cyprus'). Nature 68

  6. 1911
    Named in William Bateson's letter to Evans (28 Dec 1911) as digging for cave fossils on Ibiza (Ashmolean, AJE/1/1/1/12/1).

    Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Sir Arthur Evans Archive, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/12/1, «Letter from William Bateson», 28/12/1911

  7. 1951
    Her study of the fowl bones from the Aphendrika tomb is reported by Zeuner: the birds were small, and their metacarpals and ulnae too short for the body, so they must have been unable to fly. The tomb is cited to Dray and du Plat Taylor, 1951.

    AphendrikaFrederick E. Zeuner (1963). A History of Domesticated Animals. leaf 449 (domestic fowl), p. 449

  8. 2018
    Said in the recorded talk «Flesh on bones: latest developments and state of affairs in Cypriot Zooarchaeology» (Archaeological Research Unit - University of Cyprus, 2018-03-26): Carried out the first scientific study of animal remains in Cyprus, a palaeontological study focused on the dwarf elephant of Cyprus.

    Angelos Hadjikoumis, «Flesh on bones: latest developments and state of affairs in Cypriot Zooarchaeology», recorded lecture, Archaeological Research Unit - University of Cyprus, published on YouTube 2018-03-26, at 0:02:00

  9. Undated
    Found pygmy hippopotamus and small elephant bones in the caves of northern Cyprus.

    J. W. Gregory (1931). A Submarine Trough off the Coast of Cyprus. In The Geographical Journal. pp. 357–361. p. 357.

  10. Undated
    Pioneering palaeontologist and archaeozoologist who worked in Cyprus, Malta and Crete: «pioneering palaeontologist and archaeozoologist who worked in Cyprus, Malta and Crete.»

    J. D. M. Green; R. Henry, Olga Tufnell's 'Perfect Journey': letters and photographs of an archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean (2021), p. 345

Connections

1 person

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

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Mentioned in

3 mentions

Sources

  1. 1.“Dorothea Bate”. Wikipedia. Online
  2. 2.“Dorothea Bate”. Wikidata / GND. Online
  3. 3.Karolyn Shindler (2006). Discovering Dorothea: the life of the pioneering fossil-hunter Dorothea Bate.
  4. 4. (2004). “Bate, Dorothea Minola Alice”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 4, p. 1034.
  5. 5.Frederick E. Zeuner (1963). A History of Domesticated Animals. leaf 449 (domestic fowl).
  6. 6.D. M. A. Bate (1903). “Preliminary note on the discovery of a pigmy elephant in the Pleistocene of Cyprus”. Proceedings of the Royal Society 71.
  7. 7.Rachel L. M. Warren; C. J. O. Harrison (1971). Type-specimens of birds in the British Museum (Natural History), vol. 2: Passerines.
  8. 8.Royal Society, report of meeting of 7 May (1903). “Societies and Academies (Royal Society: Bate, 'Preliminary Note on the Discovery of a Pigmy Elephant in the Pleistocene of Cyprus')”. Nature 68.
  9. 9.British Museum (Natural History) (1904). Guide to the vertebrate fossils (British Museum guides).
  10. 10.Sir J. T. Hutchinson and Claude Delaval Cobham, A Handbook of Cyprus (1907).
  11. 11.Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Sir Arthur Evans Archive, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/12/1, «Letter from William Bateson», 28/12/1911. Online
  12. 12.Angelos Hadjikoumis, «Flesh on bones: latest developments and state of affairs in Cypriot Zooarchaeology», recorded lecture, Archaeological Research Unit - University of Cyprus, published on YouTube 2018-03-26, at 0:02:00. Online
  13. 13.J. W. Gregory (1931). A Submarine Trough off the Coast of Cyprus. In The Geographical Journal. pp. 357–361. p. 357.. Online
  14. 14.J. D. M. Green; R. Henry, Olga Tufnell's 'Perfect Journey': letters and photographs of an archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean (2021).
  15. 15.Dorothea Bate.
  16. 16.L'Anthropologie (1903).
  17. 17.L'Anthropologie (1890).
  18. 18.l'Anthropologie 1903: Vol 14.

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