Mesolithic aurochs skull from Northumberland
January 2010
A remarkable discovery of prehistoric animal bones has been made
by a client of PCA, Thompsons of Prudhoe, who are engaged in a long-term
programme of sand and gravel extraction at the Haughton Strother
quarry in Northumberland. In the summer of 2009, John Rutherford,
a machine operator at the quarry, was amazed to see a huge horned
animal skull hanging from his machine bucket while excavating several
metres below the ground surface. The find is in fact a near complete
aurochs skull, a species of fierce wild cattle – much larger
the domestic cow - that became extinct in Britain during the Bronze
Age. Thompsons immediately informed the Northumberland County Conservation
Team and PCA, their archaeological consultants for this site, of
the find and the results of analysis of the remains are now available.
The Haughton Strother quarry is located on a bend in the River
North Tyne near Simonburn, north of Hexham, at a location where
the river has moved progressively eastwards over many millennia
leaving behind a series of infilled river channels (palaeochannels).
Due to the high water table and the instability of overlying alluvial
material, examination of the palaeochannels and associated river
terraces proved extremely difficult during an archaeological evaluation
undertaken at the site by PCA in 2005.
The aurochs skull has been identified by an expert from Durham
University as a large elderly male animal, which is likely to have
been a solitary animal, possibly cast out of its herd before choosing
this secluded wetland area to die. Close examination of the skull
indicates that the dead aurochs became anchored into the riverbed
gravels by its horns prior to the channel infilling. The skull has
been radiocarbon dated by a research centre in Glasgow to 5670-5520
BC and is therefore of Late Mesolithic date. Two red deer antlers
were also found in the same vicinity as the aurochs skull in the
summer of 2009 and one of these has produced a very similar radiocarbon
date - in the sixth millennium BC.
During the Mesolithic period, northern Britain would have been
sparsely occupied by groups of mobile hunter and gatherer communities.
Scatters of Late Mesolithic worked flint have been found throughout
the Tyne Valley with the Corbridge/Stocksfield area being particularly
prolific in this regard. Late Mesolithic worked flint has also been
found in the upper North Tyne area during excavations at Kennel
Hall Knowe, Kielder.
Discoveries of Mesolithic animal bones – particularly large
items in as remarkably good condition as the aurochs skull from
Haughton Strother - are certainly not common in Britain. Up to the
year 2000, around only 200 sites nationally had yielded aurochs
remains and of these less than 20% had been proven as being of Mesolithic
date. A partially dismembered aurochs found buried in a large pit
in west London in the 1980s was of Bronze Age date. That beast had
been hunted and killed with arrows prior to being cut up and then
buried and it is generally supposed that the species was driven
to extinction in Britain in the Bronze Age due to over hunting.
The aurochs skull from Haughton Strother has generated great media
interest in the North East region and the discovery has been featured
in the press, on the radio and on ‘Look North’, the
regional news programme for BBC television.
www.journallive.co.uk
www.dailymail.co.uk
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