The curious case of the ancient brain
A 2000 year old decapitated Yorkshire man and the ancient proteins in his preserved brain might provide clues to modern diseases, as Hayley Bennett discovers
It December 2008, archaeologists discovered the 2600-year-old skull of a decapitated Iron Age man buried in a wet pit at an excavation on the University of York campus in the UK. Inside it was something quite unexpected: his shrivelled, but very much intact brain.
The man apparently died in a brutal attack involving at least seven blows to the front of the neck. His brain, which should by all rights have decomposed long ago, was caked in mud but careful cleaning revealed its preserved structure. No one knew how this brain could survive but scientists think that some of the peculiarities of his proteins might account for the exceptional preservation of the Yorkshire man’s brain – and could lead to insights into neurodegenerative conditions, like dementia.