Brain dead: 2600-year-old perfectly preserved British brain found

In England, a 2 600-year-old human skull discovered was less surprising than what it was: the brain. The discovery of the yellowish, crinkly, shrunk brain led to questions about the survival of such a fragile organ and the intensity of its preserving.

Except for the brain, all of the skull’s soft tissue was gone when the skull was pulled from a muddy Iron Age pit where the University of York was planning to expand its Heslington East campus. 

“It was just amazing to think that a brain of someone who had died so many thousands of years ago could persist just in wet ground,” said Sonia O’Connor, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bradford. O’Connor led a team of researchers who assessed the state of the brain after it was found in 2008 and looked into likely modes of preservation.

“It’s particularly surprising because if you talk to pathologists who deal with fresh dead bodies they say the first organ to really deteriorate and to basically go to liquid is the brain because of its high-fat content,” O’Connor said.

When it was found, the skull – which belonged to a man probably between 26 and 45 years old – was accompanied by a jaw and two neck vertebrae, bearing evidence of hanging and then decapitation.

Cut marks on the inside of the neck indicate that the head was severed while there was still flesh on the bones, O’Connor said. There is, however, no indication of why he was hanged, and the rest of his remains have yet to be found.

More than a decade earlier, O’Connor was involved in the discovery of 25 preserved brains within medieval-era remains from Kingston-upon-Hull in England. Aside from the brains, only bones remained, and all other soft tissue was gone.

In this regard, the so-called Heslington brain and the medieval remains are quite different from mummies, frozen bodies, or intentionally preserved remains because in these cases other soft-tissue – skin, muscles and so on – is preserved as well. None of the recently discovered remains showed any signs that they were intentionally preserved.

The Heslington remains, along with others O’Connor has discovered, appear to have been buried quickly after death in wet environments where the absence of oxygen prevented the brain tissue from putrefying.

But while the oxygen-free environment seems key, it is not possible to rule out other factors like certain diseases or physiological changes, such as those that accompany starvation, that might predispose the brain to be preserved this way, according to O’Connor.

After being deposited in the water-logged pit, the Heslington brain began to change chemically, developing into a durable material and shrinking to a quarter of its size. The chemical details of the new material are still under investigation, she said.

In a study in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, O’Connor’s team amassed a list of other, similarly preserved brains found since 1960.

Reports like these typically fly under the radar and do not appear in the mainstream archaeological science publications and when archaeologists do discover a preserved brain, they tend to think it is the first of such a find, she said. This is why collections of science publications and articles are so important, but also why it is so important for archaeologists and other scientists to be keeping up to date with new ones. They can always Request a PubMed article from libraries here if they don’t know where to access them.

“I think part of the problem is archaeologists are very happy to deal with humans’ skeletal remains but as soon as there is any hint of soft tissue it is psychologically very, very different. You are no longer dealing with a skeleton, you are dealing with the remains of a corpse and, of course, a corpse is a dead individual,” she said.

The skull has been dated to some time between 673 and 482 B.C.; Romans, meanwhile, arrived in the area in A.D. 71, according to Richard Hall, director of archaeology at the York Archaeological Trust, which the university hired to assess the site and handle the excavation in Heslington.

This appears to have been a permanent settlement with ditches that divided the area into fields and walled parkways through which cattle could be driven, Hall told to BBC.

Archaeologists have also found at the site circular features they believe were probably thatched-roof houses, as well as a pond-like feature probably used for water storage, he said.

At this point, the purpose of pits like the one in which the skull was found isn’t clear, he said. No other human remains have been found on the site.

Rogue Metal Detectorists Stole $3.6 Million Treasure

During the years, metal detectorists make numerous remarkable finds in Britain, with a large crowd of 2,600 coins discovered a few months ago.

Yet archeological discoveries by detectorists are subject to stringent rules. Currently, four people are being held guilty of conspiring to disguise and illegally sell a treasure with metal detectors by the British courts.

Two metal detectorists have been jailed for stealing the “emblematic” Viking-era Leominster Hoard of coins and priceless jewellery worth up to £12 million – much of which is still missing.

George Powell, 38, and Layton Davies, 51, failed to declare an “invaluable” collection of buried treasure dating back 1,100 years to the birth of a united English kingdom, during the time of Alfred the Great.

The items, many of which were Anglo Saxon but are typical of a Viking burial hoard, were dug up on Herefordshire farmland on June 2, 2015.

It is thought the trove was buried by someone within the Great Viking Army in either 878 or 879, which by then was being forced back east by an alliance of Saxon forces.

Powell, who was described as having the “leading” role, was jailed for 10 years while caretaker Davies received eight-and-a-half years.

Both were also convicted alongside two other men, 60-year-old Paul Wells and Simon Wicks, 57, with conspiring to conceal the find. Sentencing at Worcester Crown Court on Friday, Judge Nicholas Cartwright said they had “cheated” not only the landowner but the public of “exceptionally rare and significant” coins.

He said: “90% of the coins or thereabouts remain hidden to this day.

“All four defendants played their respective parts.

“You, Simon Wicks, were part of a conspiracy to conceal the stolen treasure and to sell it.

“Paul Wells, who will be sentenced an on a future occasion, was part of a conspiracy to conceal part of the stolen treasure.”

He added: “The irony in this case is if you, George Powell, and you, Layton Davies, had obtained the permissions and agreements which responsible metal detectorists are advised to obtain, if you had gone on to act within the law after you found this treasure, you could have expected to have either a half share, or at very worst a third share of over £3 million to share between the two of you.

“But you wanted more.”

Among the priceless hoard was a ninth-century gold ring, a dragon’s head bracelet, a silver ingot, a crystal rock pendant dating to the fifth century and up to 300 coins, some dating to the reign of King Alfred.

Only 31 of the coins have been recovered, although mobile phone photographs on Davies’s phone – later deleted, but recovered by police – showed the larger hoard, still intact, in a freshly dug hole.

Five of the coins are examples of the exceptionally rare Two Emperors penny, valued at up to £50,000 apiece, and so-called as they depict King Alfred and a lesser-known monarch, Ceolwulf II, who reigned in the old kingdom of Mercia, sitting together.

Expert analysis of all the jewellery and coinage recovered to date and now held at the British Museum returned a valuation of at least £581,000.

Wicks, Powell, and Davies were also found guilty of converting their ill-gotten gains into cash, after police traced several coins that had been sold on to private collectors, hidden away or left with expert valuers.

Powell, of Kirby Lane, Newport; Davies, of Cardiff Road, Pontypridd; Wells, of Newport Road, Cardiff, and Wicks, of Hawks Road, Hailsham, East Sussex, were also convicted after trial of ignoring the law stating such finds must be properly declared.