This image from http://irisharchaeology.ie/2014/05/a-barbary-ape-skull-from-navan-fort-co-armagh/
So here’s a teaser. The Barbary ape is an African primate whose only toehold on the European continent is at Gibraltar, where a tiny population has survived into modern times. How, then, did a Barbary Ape get to Co Armagh in Northern Ireland in the Iron Age? Archaeologists have waxed lyrical over the find of ape remains at EM since publication of the find in 1971, and have constructed ambitious models of trade that have seen Carthaginian merchants turn up in the cold north with monkeys and other primates running up and down their rigging. And, to be fair, it is easy to understand the excitement of these archaeologists. But is everything really as it seems?
Read on...
The headline is a bit a misleading since the "Barbary ape" is actually a Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) and not an "African ape," but a monkey. Monkeys (as pets?) appear to have been transported into Ireland. To have an ape up there that early, well, that's a different cup of tea.
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