Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

The Heslington Iron Age Brain: Cerebral Survival and Archaeological Science.
Dr Sonia O’Connor FSA FIIC ACR
The University of Bradford

Joint Lecture with the York Archaeological Trust

In August 2008, a prehistoric human skull containing the remains of a brain was discovered in a waterlogged pit at Heslington East, York. Autopsy records show that after death the brain is very quick to putrefy to liquid. Its survival might only be expected where the biodeterioration of the soft tissues has been inhibited, whether through deliberate preservation, such as embalmed Egyptian mummies, or particular environmental conditions, as in the case of bog bodies, the Tyrolean Ice Man and the crypt burials from Spitalfields Church, London. When brain tissue persists in these bodies, evidence of other internal organs, muscle, skin and hair are also preserved, unless they have been deliberately removed. What was unexpected in the Heslington case was to find brain remains in an otherwise skeletalised skull.

The interdisciplinary study of these remains has provided powerful evidence of the final moments of this individual’s life, his death and burial. It has also given us new insights into burial practises and changed our understanding of the potential of the brain to persist in burial environments.

Report
by Avijit Datta
The Heslington Iron-Age brain: cerebral survival and archaeological science
Dr. Sonia O’Connor, Research Fellow in Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford
The oldest surviving human brain material found in Britain has been discovered inside a (decapitated) skull buried in land on the Heslington East site of the University of York extension. Other preserved brains had been found elsewhere: the ice-age man in the Tyrol, Egyptian mummies and Andean remains, but these were found in conditions where other soft tissue had also survived. The Heslington brain was unusual in that no other soft tissue remained. The speaker postulated that the short interval between death and burial in hypoxic conditions had prevented putrefaction of the brain material. Similar conditions probably obtained for older preserved brain material found in Floridian swamps. Doubts about the authenticity of the brain were rebutted by the speaker’s scientific team with three lines of evidence. Firstly, x-ray and magnetic resonance computed tomographic imaging showed discernible macroscopic cerebral structures. Secondly, transmission electron microscopy revealed structures reminiscent of myelin like tubules seen around neurons. Lastly, chemical analysis revealed peptides found in neurofilaments.

Sponsored by York Archaeological Trust