For two centuries, Britain has surpassed its status in discovering ancient life. 2 weeks ago A giant pliosaurus skull unearthed on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast has been unveiled to the public.Since then, about 5,000 visitors have flocked to see it. But what other important fossils have been unearthed in Britain?
Most of Britain’s dinosaur fossils are found on the coast of southern England, including the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, the Isle of Wight, and clay quarries in Surrey and the Cotswolds.
But in February 2021, fossils of Britain’s largest sea predator from the time of dinosaurs were discovered at Rutland Water Nature Reserve in the East Midlands.
The 33-foot-long (10-meter) ichthyosaur fossil, which is about 180 million years old, was discovered during routine drainage of a lagoon island for re-landscaping.
It was discovered by Joe Davies of the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust and excavated by a team led by ichthyosaur expert Dr Dean Lomax and palaeontologist Nigel Larkin.
Dolphin-like reptiles – known as sea dragons – vary in size from 3 feet (1 meter) to 82 feet (25 meters).
It is not only the largest fossil of its kind ever found in the UK, but also the first of its kind (Temnodontosaurus trigonodon) to be discovered in the UK. It is considered.
world’s first dinosaur
In the 17th and 18th centuries, people around Oxfordshire began discovering mysterious bones.
Artifacts such as a single tooth and part of a leg bone puzzled scholars, but geologist and theologian William Buckland studied remains, including those found in a slate quarry in the village of Stonesfield. It was not until around 1818 that he began .
In 1824, Buckland used the bones of this giant reptile-like creature – megalosaurus – meaning “great lizard” in the first scientific description of a dinosaur.
The dentary, on display at the university’s Natural History Museum, is just the front half of a lower jaw with serrated teeth, indicating the creature was carnivorous.
Fast forward to 1842, the term “dinosaur” was coined by: biologist richard owen Describes a group of animals including megalosaurs and other giant lizards.
Britain’s oldest human fossil
The Box Globeman is a 500,000-year-old fossil thought to belong to the Homo heidelbergensis species, an extinct relative of modern humans.
The remains of two tibia bones and two teeth, discovered in Boxgrove, West Sussex in 1993, are thought to be the oldest human fossils ever found in Britain.
Archaeologist Mark Roberts and his team from University College London made this discovery at the world-famous site.
Primitive flint and horn tools used have also been discovered, and this site has also found primitive flint and horn tools. It was also thought to be a spring or waterhole where primitive hunters slaughtered giant deer and rhinos.
Associate Professor Matthew Pope, from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, said the site is an exceptionally preserved 26km-wide ancient stone landscape, providing a virtually untouched record of early humans.
The best-preserved area of the site is known as the Horse Slaughterhouse Ruins, as this is where large horses were slaughtered and processed approximately 480,000 years ago.
What is a fossil?
Fossils are the preserved remains of plants and animals buried in sand, mud, and other sediments beneath ancient waterways.
Soft tissues decay soon after death, while harder elements such as bones and teeth are replaced by minerals that eventually harden into rock.
For a fossil to form, a specimen must be quickly buried by sediment that was previously suspended in water.
This isolates the remains from biological and physical processes that would destroy or dissolve them.
sauce: British Geological Survey
‘One of Britain’s greatest Ice Age discoveries’
In 2017, a couple searching for marine fossils in a former quarry on the outskirts of Swindon, Wiltshire, noticed something unusual poking out of the mud.
It turned out to be the fossilized tip of a giant mammoth foot bone. Sally and Neville Hollingworth stumble upon the discovery of a lifetime: a huge graveyard in the old prehistoric bed of the River Thames.
When she returned to dig up more mammoth bones and tusks, Sally discovered a stone hatchet made by early humans.
Unlike most mammoth discoveries, which date back tens of thousands of years, the fossils appear to be hundreds of thousands of years old.
When Sir David Attenborough heard about their discovery he was keen to see it for himself and the discovery featured in a BBC One documentary. Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard.
At the time, Historic England chief executive Duncan Wilson said the discovery was “one of the most important discoveries of the recent ice age in Britain”.
He said: “This discovery will be of great value for understanding human occupation of the UK, and the sensitive environmental evidence recovered will also help understand it in the context of past climate change.” said.
Relatives of Tyrannosaurus
In 2019, fossils believed to be related to Tyrannosaurus rex were discovered on the Isle of Wight by three different people.
Paleontologists from the University of Southampton believe the four bones discovered at Shanklin Beach belong to a new species of theropod dinosaur.
It lived 115 million years ago during the Cretaceous period and is estimated to have been up to 13 feet (4 meters) long.
The dinosaur, named Vectaerovenator inopinatus, belongs to a group of dinosaurs that includes tyrannosaurs and is a distant predecessor to modern birds.
Regular fossil hunter Robin Ward, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, was on the Isle of Wight with his family at the time of the discovery, and James Lockyer, from Spalding, Lincolnshire, also found another bone. It was the same when I discovered it.
Paul Farrell, from Ryde, was walking along the beach kicking rocks when he spotted what appeared to be a dinosaur bone.
“I was really shocked to find out it could be a new species,” he said.
The Latin name Vectaerovenator inopinatus means “unexpected airy hunter of the Isle of Wight” and refers to the large air pockets found in this creature’s neck, back, and part of its tailbone.
This was one of the characteristics that helped scientists determine the origin of theropods.
These air sacs, which are also found in modern birds, are extensions of the lungs and likely “helped lighten the skeleton and fuel an efficient breathing system,” the University of Southampton said. Stated.
