DATA ARTICLE | SHORT

The Rosenlund Catalogue: a GIS database of Quaternary zoological fauna in Denmark

Kristian K. Kjeldsen¹ , Kim Aaris-Sørensen², Anne B. Gotfredsen³ , Pernille Bangsgaard³ , Kasper L. Hansen³ , Kristian M. Gregersen⁴ , and Kurt H. Kjær^2,3

¹Department of Glaciology and Climate, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Copenhagen, Denmark; ²Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; ³Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; ⁴Royal Danish Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

The Rosenlund Catalogue presents a digitised, Geographical Information System (GIS) data set of the Quaternary zoological fauna curated at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. The data set derives from the Quaternary Zoological Central Register and comprises 20 315 taxonomic entries linked to 6481 accessions collected between 1814 and 2022 across Denmark. Each entry is associated with contextual metadata including a journal number, locality (parish, district, county), excavation year, find context, dating method and chronozone classification. Spatial referencing is based on the pre-1970 parish division and georeferenced using ETRS89/UTM Zone 32N. The original relational database structure, consisting of linked contextual and taxonomic tables, was extracted, cleaned and migrated to interoperable formats (.xlsx and .gpkg). The resulting data set provides nationwide spatial coverage and standardised taxonomic and stratigraphic information. These data support research and heritage management applications in Quaternary zoology, archaeology, biostratigraphy, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and long-term biodiversity change.

Tabular abstract

1 The Danish Quaternary zoological fauna collection

The Quaternary zoological fauna collection at the Natural History Museum Denmark, part of the University of Copenhagen (formerly the Zoological Museum [ZM]), Denmark, constitutes one of the most comprehensive national collections of archaeological and geological vertebrate remains in Europe. The scientific study of Quaternary vertebrate remains in Denmark formally began in 1814 with Professor Johannes H. Reinhardt, who initiated the systematic recording of zoological material. This followed the Oldsagskommissionen in 1807, which, by law, introduced the systematic registration of antiquities and the collection of artefacts in Denmark, including bones. From this initiative emerged several key institutions, including the Museum of Nordic Antiquities (later the National Museum of Denmark) and the Natural History Museum Denmark, as well as the parish boundaries (Sognebeskrivelsen), which form the basis for the present-day parish (sogn) and district (herred) system. Following Reinhardt’s death in 1845, Japetus Steenstrup continued and expanded this work, actively promoting the development of a national collection of subfossil and archaeological bone material. The subsequent merging of the Natural History Museum and the university collections under the University of Copenhagen consolidated responsibility for Quaternary zoological studies within the then ZM. Since the mid-19th century, the majority of faunal remains from the Kingdom of Denmark, including Iceland (until 1944), the Faroe Islands and Greenland have been submitted to the museum for identification and curation. Curator H. Winge should be credited with initiating a systematic registration procedure that formed the backbone of the collection’s documentation. This system was further developed by conservator Ulrik Møhl Hansen, who introduced the journal numbering system under curator Magnus Degerbøl in the 1940s. Later, curator K. Aaris-Sørensen and collection manager K. Rosenlund implemented an electronic registration system in the late 20th century, formalised in the Quaternary Zoological Central Register (DKC; Det Kvartærzoologiske Centralregister) database.

The collection currently comprises between 10 and 15 million individual specimens including both morphologically distinct and indeterminable bone fragments, which are related to 6481 separate accessions submitted to the collection. Here, we define an accession as an incoming archaeological or geological find or collection that has been given a journal number – referred to as the Z.M.K. (Zoological Museum København; i.e. Copenhagen) number. An accession can include a single find consisting of one specimen or a large find with numerous specimens. From all accessions, some 20 315 individual entries have been determined to species level or to a higher taxonomic level typically to genus or family and registered together with their respective metadata (Table 1).

The earliest data entry relates to material submitted in 1770, while the most recent entries date to 2022. The collection includes material recovered from archaeological excavations, geological exposures, peat bogs and wetlands, marine contexts, and stray finds from fields and construction activities. Find contexts span from the previous interglacials, including the Cromer-complex, Holstein and Eemian covering up to c. 850 000 year old material through the last Weichselian glaciation into the Holocene and more recent historical times. The material forms the empirical basis for research into faunal history and biodiversity change, human–animal interactions, climate and environmental reconstructions as well as biostratigraphy.

The temporal and spatial development of the Quaternary zoological collection in Denmark from the early 19th century to the present (N = 6481) is shown in Fig. 1 and demonstrates a gradual expansion from the scattered early records to the dense nationwide coverage of today. Looking at the annual accumulation of registrations, the modest activity in the 19th century is followed by strong growth in the mid- and late 20th century. Exploration of peat during the Second World War, while Denmark was occupied, increased the accession many fold to the collection. Key methodological and administrative milestones such as systematic accession protocols, Winge’s registration system, introduction of journal numbers (Curator Degerbøl) the establishment of the DKC database and later GIS implementation are indicated along the timeline (Fig. 1). Altogether, this timeline highlights how institutional development and research intensity shaped the growth of the collection over more than two centuries.

Fig. 1 The temporal and spatial development of the Quaternary zoological collection in Denmark from the early 19th century to the present (N = 6481 entries). Upper panels: geographical distribution of finds during successive curatorial periods. Lower panels: annual accumulation of registrations.

2 Data registration and structure

To document and manage the collection an electronic database system was developed. The DKC was formalised in the 1990s and originally operated using Paradox 4.5 for DOS. The database consists of two linked tables and associated forms and macros (Tables 2 and 3).

The DKCFUND table (Table 2) contains contextual and administrative metadata for each registered lot. Key fields are in Danish and include Z.M.K. (journal number), Sort.nr. (year and running number), Fremmed nr. (external journal numbers), Lokalitet (locality), Sogn (Parish), Herred (District), Amt (county) and UTM coordinates, Opbevares (storage location), Indkommet (registration date), Udgravet (excavation year(s)), Fundforhold (archaeological or non-archaeological context), Datering (dating method), Kronozone (chronozone classification following Mangerud et al. 1974), and Diverse (miscellaneous information).

The DKCART table (Table 3) contains taxonomic identifications linked to each find via the Z.M.K. key field. It includes fields for Art (species), Artsnr. (species number), and Bemærkninger (remarks). This relational structure allows separation of contextual metadata from taxonomic data and supports multi-table queries. Importantly, the data set preserves historical catalogue terminology and therefore requires further taxonomic standardisation before analytical use.

The Holocene subdivisions and their approximate age before present (BP) according to Mangerud et al. (1974) and the current International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) are compared in Table 4.

3 Data processing

To improve accessibility and interoperability, the original DKC database was extracted to Excel, processed and cleaned, and linked to spatial data in ArcGIS Pro (ESRI n.d.) and QGIS (QGIS n.d.) software. As of 1 September 2025, the processed data set contained 20 315 individual entries, of which 19 607 (96.5%) contained spatial information.

Spatial referencing is based on parish (Sogn), district (Herred), and county (Amt), following the parish-municipality divisions pre-01 April 1970, which provide each of these three levels with a unique place number (in Danish Stednummer; Stednummerfortegnelse 1961). These differ from the church parishes (in Danish kirkesogne), and thus from here on ‘parish’ refers to the parish-municipalities. Parish centroid coordinates were extracted in ETRS89/UTM Zone 32N (EPSG:25832) and linked to database entries using Excel’s XLOOKUP function. The use of parish ensures that any samples excavated, also those prior to the use of modern geodetic instruments, could systematically be provided with a spatial location or at least an estimate of the origin. As a measure of uncertainty associated with each find location – the centroid of a given parish – the maximum distance from the centroid to the edge of the specific parish is provide in the column ‘MaxDist’. Standardised naming conventions for localities and museum acronyms ensure consistency across decades of data entry that were preserved during GIS migration. The same applies if individual addresses or geographic coordinates are provided in the original database.

As a quality control measure the location for each entry was assessed and spellings, for example, for parish, district and county names were corrected or streamlined. Where these details were missing entirely, but other spatial information allowed identification of the location, for example, a placename or address, then these details were added. In the absence of specific locality data, these records have been assigned to the Natural History Museum Denmark, more specifically to the former ZM (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), which serves as the reference location in the data set. For easier identification of these entries, they are marked by ‘Yes’ in the column ‘Home_Coord’, while ‘No’ indicates that the parish location is known. Unknown find locations (i.e. ‘Yes’ in the ‘Home_Coord’ column) comprised 3.5% of the entries in the database at the time of publication.

An example of a possible output resulting from the GIS migration is shown in Fig. 2. The relatively large proportion of entries clustered in central Copenhagen, eastern Denmark, reflects specimens for which precise geographical information was not available at the time of registration. The maps demonstrate both the nationwide coverage of the data set and regional clustering, particularly in eastern Denmark, reflecting excavation intensity and preservation potential of bone material.

Fig. 2 Spatial distribution of the Quaternary zoological dataset across Denmark. The upper panel shows the total number of registered entries aggregated by parish, displayed as graduated colours representing cumulative counts per parish (ETRS89 / UTM Zone 32N). Darker shades indicate higher concentrations of finds. Purple triangle mark the Zoological museum and depository for the Quaternary zoological collection. The lower four panels present the spatial distribution of selected major taxa groups (e.g. Bos primigenius (aurochs); Canis familiaris (domestic dog); Capra hircus (domestic goat); Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth), with proportional red circles illustrating the number of records per locality.

The administrative boundaries for Danish archaeological museums cover land and coastal waters – the latter are associated with The Viking Ship Museum (Vikingeskibsmuseet) in the east and Marinarkæologi Vest (MAV) in the west (Fig. 3). For more information on the museums, the user is referred to the Agency for Culture and Palaces website (Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen 2026). In addition to the nationwide online data, we have provided subsets according to each of the administrative boundaries within the database.

Fig. 3 Administrative boundaries for Danish archaeological museums, including domains covering coastal waters.

4 Dedication to Knud Rosenlund (1946–2024)

This catalogue is dedicated to the memory of Knud Rosenlund (08 March 1946–25 January 2024), whose life and work are inseparably interwoven with the history of the Quaternary Zoological Collections and the DKC. Knud’s generosity, intellectual sharpness, and distinctive sense of humour left an enduring mark on colleagues and collaborators alike. Through six decades of dedicated service, he contributed not only to the growth and reputation of the collections, but to the collegial spirit that sustains scholarly work.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Nils A. Thomasen for assistance with cleaning the GIS migration data. They also thank the two reviewers, Youri van den Hurk and Sofie Folsach Hellerøe, whose comments improved the manuscript.

Additional information

Authors’ contributions

Kurt H. Kjær initiated the study and Kristian K. Kjeldsen designed the GIS migration. All authors contributed to writing, review & editing (critical review of the manuscript; refinement of language and structure; substantive feedback on interpretations; review and input on figures, tables and supplementary materials). All authors approved the final manuscript.

Additional files

The entire data set including a readme-file are available at: https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/B7GOPK

References