Pyramid Valley
Coordinates: 42 ° 58 ′ 0 ″ S , 172 ° 37 ′ 36 ″ E
Pyramid Valley is a limestone formation near Waikari in the North Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island . It is 80 kilometers northwest of Christchurch . At the bottom of the valley is a swamp that became known in 1939 as New Zealand's largest deposit for moa fossils . In 1938 the owners of the swamp, the brothers Joseph and Rob Hodgen, discovered three large bones of the moa species Dinornis giganteus while a horse was being buried . They opened the swamp for excavations and from the 1940s onwards, numerous paleontologists, including Robert Alexander Falla , Roger Duff , Robert Cushman Murphy , Jim Eyles and Ron Scarlett, began their research. The fossil remains of several extinct bird species, including 183 complete moa skeletons, were brought to light. Tens of thousands of bone fragments from 46 species of modern birds have also been discovered. The swamp formed around 18,000 BC and dried up around 2,000 years ago. It was characterized by lush vegetation and provided a habitat for five different species of moa.
Today there are vineyards in the Pyramid Valley where Riesling is grown.
literature
- Roger Duff: Pyramid Valley, Waikari, North Canterbury. The Story of New Zealand's Greatest Moa Swamp . Association of Friends of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch 1949.
- Trevor H. Worthy , Richard N. Holdaway: The Lost World of the Moa. Prehistoric Life of New Zealand. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN et al. 2002, ISBN 0-253-34034-9 , ( Life of the past ).
- RN Holdaway, TH Worthy: A reappraisal of the late Quaternary fossil vertebrates of Pyramid Valley Swamp, North Canterbury, New Zealand. In: New Zealand Journal of Zoology 24, 1997, ISSN 0301-4223 , pp. 69-121.
- CJ Burrows: Moa Browsing. Evidence from the Pyramid Valley Mire . In: University of Canterbury (Ed.): New Zealand Journal of Ecology . Vol. 12, 1989, ISSN 0077-9946 , pp. 51–56 (English, online PDF 206 kB [accessed January 20, 2016]).
Web links
- Moa in Aspic In: Time Magazine, Monday April 25, 1949. Online