2,000-year-old skull found with well-preserved brain
Scientists said yesterday that the mass of grey matter was more than 2,000 years old — the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it “a real freak of preservation.”
The skull was severed from its owner some time before the Roman invasion of Britain and found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York, in northern England, according to Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust.
Finds officer Rachel Cubbitt realised the skull might contain a brain when she felt something move inside the cranium as she was cleaning it, Hall said. She looked through the skull’s base and spotted an unusual yellow substance inside.
Scans at York Hospital confirmed the presence of brain tissue.
Hall said it was unclear just how much of the brain had survived, saying the tissue had apparently contracted over the years. Parts of the brain have been tentatively identified, but more research was needed, he said.
He said it was a mystery why the skull was buried separately from its body, suggesting human sacrifice and ritual burial as possible explanations.
The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O’Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford who helped authenticate the discovery.
The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren’t thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology at Oxford University unconnected with the find.
