The 'oldest northerner' in England may have finally been found after a landmark dig inside a cave turned up a prehistoric burial site.
A team from around the world this week confirmed that human remains found by a local archaeologist in Cumbria are as much as 11,000 years old.
Experts from University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) are now hailing the post-Ice Age find at Heaning Wood Bone cave as one of the earliest human remains to have been found in the United Kingdom, and the oldest ever in the north.
Bone fragments of eight different individuals were found buried inside the cave, with all but one of these having since been radiocarbon dated by academics from the University of Nevada and Pennsylvania State University in the US.
Their analysis supports the idea that the site - which was first visited by archaeologists in the late 1950s - was as a burial site at three different points during the prehistoric period.
Some of the bone fragments were dated to around 4,000 years ago while others went back 5,500 years, with very earliest dating to the Mesolithic era just after the end of the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago.
A periwinkle shell bead found alongside the oldest of the remains showed that this was a deliberate burial, according to the analysis.
Martin, who hails from nearby south Cumbria and began the latest round of excavations, says the dates went far beyond his expectations.
He said: “I never expected anything like the Early Mesolithic connection in my wildest dreams.
"After six years digging it’s all ended up in a place I never expected it to get to. I can’t wait to hear all the final results, it’s staggering so far, difficult to imagine what it would have been like around here over 11,000-years-ago.”
Dr Rick Peterson, who headed the academic team, meanwhile praised the "fantastic discovery" and said he was "delighted to confirm Martin’s unbelievable find dates back around 11,000 years ago".
He confirmed that these were the earliest dates for human activity in Britain "after the end of the last Ice Age”.
Such finds are typically more common in the south of England and Wales, which did not suffer the same level of impact from glaciers that covered northern Britain during the Ice Age
Before the most recent discovery, the 'oldest northerner' ever found was a 10,000-year-old burial unearthed at the nearby Kent’s Bank Cavern in 2013.
