8,000-year-old dolphin bones found in Scotland

In Scotland, 44-year-old Paul McDonald, while digging a pool in his backyard, discovered the bones of an 8,000-year-old dolphin. The Daily Mail reported this.

It was noted that the skeleton, which archaeologists called “the find of a lifetime”, was preserved at a depth of about 80 cm from the ground level.

“It’s just amazing. We bought a house six years ago, and I found some old bottles and coins, but I always wanted to find something like that,” said the man.

His home is many miles from the sea, but it is believed that the dolphin washed ashore when the area was part of the coast after the last ice age, and was eaten by hunter-gatherers, as a broken antler tool was found in bone center, which was probably used to finish the corpse.

“I saw the round skull, the snout and the teeth and I knew it was a dolphin. Digging that deep, I realized it was old,” said Paul McDonald, who works on the bones as a medical representative in the field. of orthopedics. .

According to the publication, the skull was removed by the staff of National Museums Scotland (National Museums Scotland, NMS) for analysis, and the rest of the skeleton will be excavated.

“I’ve been with NMS for 35 years and this is the first time anything from clay like this has been recovered. It’s a lifetime find. It looks like a beached animal that was in storage until it was discovered by Paul, is a miracle,” said Andrew Kitchener, Chief Vertebrate Conservator at the NMS.