A mammoth discovery
Our Arco Avon marine dredger has uncovered a rare mammoth tooth dating back thousands of years to the Ice Age.
The tooth, which is almost complete and still has the roots visible, measures 300mm long and 160mm wide. Experts from the Natural History Museum have identified it as belonging to an animal about 35 years old very probably from the Late Pleistocene period (350,000 to 10,000 years ago).
The discovery follows other recent finds in the same dredging lane, about 10km east of Great Yarmouth, which include a mammoth vertebra and tusk fragment and have led experts to believe that there may be a whole mammoth skeleton within the area.
It is another example of the important role responsible marine dredging can play in uncovering our archaeological and historical past.