NEW YORK: Archaeologists found a human brain, about 2,600 years old, preserved in oxygen-free clay-rich mud at an Iron Age site near York, England, in 2009.
Researchers at the York Archaeological Trust found the brain intact inside a decapitated skull, which had its jaw bone and two vertebrae attached, in Heslington, York.
The skull was found positioned face-down, without the rest of the body, in a muddy clay-rich pit that provided an oxygen-free burial micro-environment.
Researchers who found the skull first considered it an unremarkable discovery. But while they cleaned the bones, they found a “bright yellow spongy” material inside the skull.
According to Rachel Cubitt, the Collection Projects Officer, she found a “bright yellow spongy material” inside the skull when she peered through a hole at the base of the skull as it was being cleaned.
