Burrowing Bunnies in Wales Unearth Trove of Prehistoric Artifacts
Rabbits on Skokholm Island discovered Stone Age tools and fragments of a Bronze Age cremation urn
The site of the rabbit burrow has apparently been occupied by different groups over the millennia. (Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle / WTSWW)
By Livia Gershon
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 26, 2021
Scholars studying prehistoric life in Wales recently got an assist from an unexpected source. As Steven Morris reports for the Guardian, rabbits making a burrow on Skokholm Island, two miles off the coast of the southwest county of Pembrokeshire, dug up two Stone Age tools, as well as early Bronze Age pottery shards.
Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle, seabird experts who serve as wardens of the otherwise uninhabited island, spotted the objects and sent photographs of them to archaeological researchers. Looking at an image of one of the artifacts, Andrew David, an expert in prehistoric tools, identified it as a 6,000- to 9,000-year-old Mesolithic beveled pebble that was likely used to make seal skin–clad boats or prepare shellfish.
“Although these types of tools are well known on coastal sites on mainland Pembrokeshire and Cornwall, as well into Scotland and northern France, this is the first example from Skokholm, and the first firm evidence for Late Mesolithic occupation on the island,” says David in a statement.
Per BBC News, Jody Deacon, archaeology curator for National Museum Wales, notes that the pottery shards came from a thick-walled pot probably used as a cremation urn some 3,750 years ago. Like the older beveled pebbles, these burial vessels are not unusual in west Wales but are the first artifacts of their kind found on the island.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prehistoric-tools-uncovered-wales-bunnies-180977350/